BOOK OF THE DAMNED 133 



hear of the "triumphal discovery of Neptune" this "monumental 

 achievement of theoretical astronomy," as the text books call it. 



The whole trouble is that we've looked it up. 



The text-books omit this: 



That, instead of the orbit of Neptune agreeing with the calcula- 

 tions of Adams and Leverrier, it was so different that Leverrier 

 said that it was not the planet of his calculations. 



Later it was thought best to say no more upon that subject. 



The text-books omit this: 



That, in 1846, every one who knew a sine from a cosine was out 

 sining and cosining for a planet beyond Uranus. 



Two of them guessed right. 



To some minds, even after Leverrier's own rejection of Neptune, 

 the word "guessed" may be objectionable but, according to Prof. 

 Peirce, of Harvard, the calculations of Adams and Leverrier would 

 have applied quite as well to positions many degrees from the po- 

 sition of Neptune. 



Or for Prof. Peirce's demonstration that the discovery of Neptune 

 was only a "happy accident," see Proc. Amer. Acad. Sciences, 1-65. 



For references, see Lowell's Evolution of Worlds. 



Or comets: another nebulous resistance to our own notions. As 

 to eclipses, I have notes upon several of them that did not occur 

 upon scheduled time, though with differences only of seconds and 

 one delightful lost soul, deep-buried, but buried in the ultra-respect- 

 able records of the Royal Astronomical Society, upon an eclipse that 

 did not occur at all. That delightful, ultra-sponsored thing of per- 

 dition is too good and malicious to be dismissed with passing notice: 

 we'll have him later. 



Throughout the history of astronomy, every comet that has come 

 back upon predicted time not that, essentially, there was anything" 

 more abstruse about it than is a prediction that you can make 

 of a postman's periodicities to-morrow was advertised for all it 

 was worth. It's the way reputations are worked up for fortune- 

 tellers by the faithful. The comets that didn't come back omitted 

 or explained. Or Encke's comet. It came back slower and slower. 

 But the astronomers explained. Be almost absolutely sure of that: 

 they explained. They had it all worked out and formulated and 

 "proved" why that comet was coming back slower and slower and 

 there the dam thing began coming faster and faster. 



Halley's comet. 



