BOOK OF THE DAMNED 189 



who he was. Went right in and "subjected Dr. Lescarbault to a 

 very severe cross-examination" just the way you or I may feel at 

 liberty to go into anybody's home and be severe with people 

 "pressing him hard step by step" just as any one might go into 

 some one else's house and press him hard, though unknown to the 

 hard-pressed one. Not until he was satisfied, did Leverrier re- 

 veal his identity. I suppose Dr. Lescarbault expressed astonish- 

 ment. I think there's something Utopian about this: it's so unlike 

 the stand-offishness of New York life. 



Leverrier gave the name "Vulcan" to the object that Dr. Lescar- 

 bault had reported. 



By the same means by which he is, even to this day, supposed 

 by the faithful to have discovered Neptune, he had already an- 

 nounced the probable existence of an Intra-Mercurial body, or group 

 of bodies. He had five observations besides Lescarbault's upon 

 something that had been seen to cross the sun. In accordance with 

 the mathematical hypnoses of his era, he studied these six transits. 

 Out of them he computed elements giving "Vulcan" a period of 

 about 20 days, or a formula for heliocentric longitude at any 

 time. 



But he placed the time of best observation away up in 1877. 



But even so, or considering that he still had probably a good many 

 years to live, it may strike one that he was a little rash that is if 

 one have not gone very deep into the study of hypnoses that, hav- 

 ing "discovered" Neptune by a method which, in our acceptance, 

 had no more to recommend it than had once equally well-thought-of 

 methods of witch-finding, he should not have taken such chances: 

 that if he was right as to Neptune, but should be wrong as to' 

 "Vulcan," his average would be away below that of most fortune- 

 tellers, who could scarcely hope to do business upon a fifty per cent. 

 basis all that the reasoning of a tyro in hypnoses. 



The date: 



March 22, 1877. 



The scientific world was up on its hind legs nosing the sky. The 

 thing had been done so authoritatively. Never a pope had said a 

 thing with more of the seeming of finality. If six observations cor- 

 related, what more could be asked? The Editor of Nature, a week 

 before the predicted event, though cautious, said that it is difficult 

 to explain how six observers, unknown to one another, could have 

 data that could be formulated, if they were not related phenomena. 



In a way, at this point occurs the crisis of our whole book. 



