352 HUMBOLDT'S COSMOS. 



most essential in the question may be regarded as finally 

 settled. The whole history of this discovery forms, beyond 

 doubt, one of the most remarkable passages in the records of 

 astronomy.* 



We must advert here though slightly, as befits what is 

 not yet proved to those refined observations of Leverrier 

 on certain irregularities in the motion of Mercury, which led 

 him to suppose another planet, still nearer to the Sun's body. 

 To this he has already given a name, an anticipation 

 hardly sanctioned by the rough notices of Lescarbault, who 

 is hitherto the only authority for its transits over the Sun. 



In closing this article, which we have sought to render a 

 just and impartial review of the volumes before us, we may 

 add that there is reason to expect the publication of the last 

 portion of the Cosmos in the course of the next few months. 

 We would express our hope that it may be presented to the 

 English reader under the same auspices as the volumes 

 already published ; where all that is more purely scientific 

 bears evidences of that clearness and accuracy which General 

 Sabine's superintendence was sure to afford ; while the 

 translator has done ample justice to the peculiar and striking 

 phraseology of the original. 



* I may, perhaps, be excused for mentioning here that, by a happy accident, 

 I was with Encke and Galle in the Observatory at Berlin on the night of 

 October 2nd, 1846, a'waiting the dispersion of clouds for a sight of the new 

 planet, when a letter was brought in from Leverrier, to whom the question of 

 its name had been referred. Encke himself had selected the name of Janus ; 

 but the moment that Leverrier's letter put before him that of Neptune, he cried 

 out, So lass den Namen Neptune sein ! In the darkness of the Observatory a 

 single lamp gave reading to the letter, which thus conveyed a name to all 

 posterity ! The spot and scene I cannot easily forget. 



