NEPTUNE 



4117 



NEPTUNE 



cost to the treasury, which could always be 

 filled by increasing the taxes levied on the com- 

 mon people. Pope Alexander, the first great 

 enemy of nepotism, said tli.it the Barberini 

 family, relatives of Urban VIII (1623-1644), 

 h H'l alone burdened the Papacy with interest 

 charges to the amount of 483,000 scudi a year, 

 nearly one-fourth of its income. The results of 

 nepotism kept the Papal states near to bank- 

 ruptcy till the nineteenth century. To-day 

 nepotism refers to the appointment of his rela- 



< > office by one in official position. 

 NEP'TUNE, the Roman name for the god 

 whom the Greeks called Poseidon, the brother 

 of Jupiter, and second only to him in authority. 

 When the universe was divided Neptune re- 

 d the seas, the rivers and the fountains 

 in fact the waters 

 everywhere. Two 

 stories of Nep- 

 tune were great 

 favorites with tho 

 Greeks. The first 

 t >es the con- 

 test between him 

 and Minerva, in 

 which the one 

 who created the 

 more useful ob- 

 ject would be 

 p r i v i 1 e g e d to 

 name the new 

 and Crowing city 

 of Athens. Nep- 

 tune created the 

 horse, and point- 

 ed out proudly 

 the many ways 

 in which it would 

 be useful to man, 



Hall, 

 Thou 



NeptuiK-. 



the gods ! 



ruler of the salt sea 



floods ; 



but Mmerva made Thou ^l, 1 .'^ 1 

 the olive tree and That dost the 



I the Thou that.' with Hthor arm 



trident 



the i .i,l,. 



:om 



Thine are the beasts with fln 



an* i 



as It 



Athen- . tii' r'.tv i'lui tumbling, fast 



All reckless follow o'er the 

 AMON. 



was called Athena. 

 me 



. dissatisfied with ln> kingdom, at- 



;>ted to gain control of d as 



'tit was condemned to build for La- 



walls of his 



Apollo aided Neptune by playing on In- 

 so that the stones sprang into place, and 



ta<k was quickly completed. The treacherous 

 king, however, refused to give to the two gods 

 tho promised payment, and in consequence 

 both Neptune and Apollo fought against the 

 city in the Trojan War. Neptune was espe- 

 cially worshiped by sailors and those who had 

 to do with horses, and games were celebrated 

 in his honor, the most important being the 

 Isthmian Games, which were held every four 

 years at Corinth. In art Neptune is shown as 

 a majestic man with broad chest and well- 

 developed muscles; in his hand he carries a 

 three-pronged spear, or trident, his special sym- 

 bol. He is usually drawn through the water 

 by dolphins, and Triton, his son by Amphitnte. 

 accompanies him. See MYTHOLOGY. 



NEPTUNE, named for Neptune, the god of 

 the sea in Grecian mythology, is a planet that 

 is never visible to the naked eye. About it 

 little is definitely known, except that it is the 

 outermost planet of the solar system, so far as 

 man is able to determine. Its discovery, con- 

 sidered one of the greatest triumphs of as- 

 tronomy, was brought about by the study of 

 the planet Uranus, which showed eccentricities 

 which led astronomers to believe it was being 

 acted upon by some invisible body. Two as- 

 tronomers, Leverrier and Adams, were able by 

 deduction and mathematical calculation to de- 

 termine what body could produce the variations 

 noticed and where that body was to be found. 

 The result was the discovery of Neptune, just 

 where these two astronomers had, independ- 

 ently of each other, stated it would be located. 

 Soon afterwards it was found that the planet 

 has one moon, revolving around it from east 

 to west. 



Neptune is at an average distance of 2,800,- 

 000,000 miles from the sun. Its diameter is 

 about 30,000 miles, some authorities stating it 

 as 33,000 miles, or nearly four times as great 

 as that of the earth. The planet completes its 

 journey round the sun in 164 years, traveling 

 in its orbit at the rate of about three and one- 

 half miles per second. Through a tele.-< 



Mine appears to have a disk of a grecm-h 

 color. Its mass is about enrht. n tunes that of 

 the earth, and its albedo, or reflecting power, is 

 a little !.>>s than that of Venus. As to its rota- 

 tion on its axis, nothing is definitely known. 

 The '-rives 900 times as nuich light and 



heat from the sun as are conveyed to far dis- 

 tant Neptune. 



For comparative *l*e of Neptune and the 

 other planets and distances from the sun, Me 

 PLANET; see, also, ASTRONOMY. 



