32 DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE. 



to produce the disturbance observed, these deviations 

 were referred to the gravitating influence of a mass 

 beyond the known limits of our Solar System. By 

 the investigations of Adams in England,* and Le Verrier 

 in France, f the place of the hypothetical mass was 

 determined, and its size computed. As a grand 

 confirmation of the great law, and to the glory of those 

 two far-searching minds, who do honour to their 

 respective countries and their age, the hypothesis 

 became a fact, in the discovery of the planet Neptune 

 in the place determined by rigorous calculation. Astro- 

 nomy affords other examples of the sublime truth of 

 the law of gravitation, than which science can afford no 

 more elevated poetry. 



So completely is all nature locked in the bonds of 

 this infinite power, that it is no poetic exaggeration to 

 declare, that the blow which rends any earthly mass 

 is conveyed by successive impulses to every one of the 

 myriads of orbs, which are even too remote for the 

 reach of telescopic vision. 



An illustrative experiment must close our consideration 

 of relative operations of rotation and gravitation. We well 

 know that a body in a fluid state would, if suspended above 

 the earth, it being at the same time free to take any form, 

 naturally assume that of a flattened spheroid, from the 

 action of the mass of the earth upon it : whereas the 

 force of cohesive attraction acting equally from all sides 

 of a centre, would, if uninfluenced, necessarily produce 

 a perfect sphere. The best method of showing that this 

 would be the case, is as follows : 



Alcohol and water are to be mixed together until the 



* Aclains : An Explanation of the observed irregularities in the 

 motion of Uranus, on the hypothesis of disturbance caused by a more 

 distant Planet. Appendix to Nautical Almanack for 1851. 



f Le Verrier: Premier M f moire sur la theorie d' Uranus, Comptes 

 Rendus, vol. xxi. ; Sur la planete qui preduit les anomalies observees 

 dans le mouvement d Uranus. Ib. vol. xxiii. 



