THE PLANET NEPTUNE, 33 



De Zach to find it immediately upon pointing his tel- 

 escope to the heavens. To Gauss, therefore, belongs 

 the honor of being the second discoverer of Ceres ; and 

 the second discovery was far more glorious than the first. 

 The discovery of the new planet has been justly 

 characterized by Professor Airy as " the effect of a move- 

 ment of the age" The honor of the discovery is not to 

 be exclusively engrossed by either Adams or Le Terrier. 

 The labors of numerous astronomers had prepared the 

 way, and contributed more or less directly to the dis- 

 covery. An eminent critic has ridiculed this idea. But 

 Mr. Adams himself informs us, that his attention was 

 first directed to the subject of the motions of Uranus, 

 by reading Airy's report on the recent progress of as- 

 tronomy ; and Le Yerrier states, that in the summer of 

 1845, he suspended the researches on comets, upon 

 which he was then employed, to devote his time to 

 Uranus, at the urgent solicitation of M. Arago. Omitting 

 several who have indirectly contributed to this result, 

 we find four whose names will ever be honorably asso- 

 ciated with the discovery of the planet Neptune, viz., 

 Adams, Challis, Le Yerrier, and Galle. Adams first de- 

 termined the approximate place of the new planet from 

 the perturbations of Uranus. Professor Challis was the 

 first to institute a systematic search for the planet, and 

 had actually secured two observations of it before it was 

 seen at Berlin. True, he did not at the time know that 

 he had found the planet, for he had not interrogated his 



observations. But the prize was secured, and he would 



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