THE PLANET NEPTUNE. 31 



Le Verrier and Walker. The orbits of Adams and Le 

 Yerrier are almost identical, but both differ materially 

 from Mr. Walker ; that is, we are compelled to admit 

 that they differ considerably from the truth. They rep- 

 resent remarkably well the direction in which the planet 

 is now seen from the earth, but they give its distance 

 too great by three hundred millions of miles ; and in 1690, 

 the planet Neptune was more than four thousand millions 

 of miles distant from the place assigned by Le Verrier to 

 his planet, and differed nearly a quadrant from it in 

 direction. This discrepancy is so great as to have given 

 occasion for the remark, that the planet actually dis- 

 covered is not the planet predicted by Le Verrier. What 

 reason there may be for this remark I shall consider 

 hereafter. 



Some difficulty at first occurred in deciding upon a 

 name for the new planet. The Bureau des Longitudes 

 of Paris were in favor of calling it Neptune, and this 

 name was given out by Le Yerrier in private letters 

 to different astronomers in England and Germany. Sub- 

 sequently, Le Yerrier commissioned his friend Arago to 

 give the planet a name ; and Arago declared he would 

 never call it by any other name than Le Verrier. When 

 Sir William Herschel discovered a planet, he named it 

 Georgium Sidus ; and the name of " the Georgian" was 

 retained until recently in the English Nautical Almanac. 

 But this name being offensive to the national pride of the 

 French, they at first called the planet Herschel, and after- 

 ward Uranus. The latter name has now come into exclu- 



