THE OUTER PLANETS. 11 7 



October 21 of the same year he visited Green- 

 wich Observatory, and left a paper containing 

 the elements of the planet, and approximately 

 fixing its position in the heavens. But the 

 Astronomer-Royal of England, Sir George Biddell 

 Airy (1801-1892), had little faith in the calcula- 

 tions of the young mathematician. He always 

 considered the correctness of a distant mathe- 

 matical result to be a subject rather of moral 

 than of mathematical evidence : in fact, regard- 

 ing Uranus, the Astronomer-Royal almost called 

 in question the correctness of the law of gravita- 

 tion. Besides, the novelty of the investigations 

 aroused scepticism, and the fact that Adams 

 was a young man, and inexperienced, went 

 against Airy's acceptance of the theory. How- 

 ever, he wrote to Adams questioning him on 

 the soundness of his idea. Adams thought the 

 matter trivial, and did not reply. Airy, there- 

 fore, took no interest in the investigations, and 

 no steps were taken to search for the unseen 

 planet. Meanwhile the Rev. W. R. Dawes 

 happened to see Adams' papers lying at Green- 

 wich, and wrote to his friend, the well-known 

 astronomer Lassell, who was in possession of a 

 very fine reflector, erected at his residence near 

 Liverpool, asking him to search for the planet. 

 But Lassell was suffering from a sprained ankle, 



