pbantom planet 159 



stance with which he promptly acquainted Leverrier. 

 The latter journeyed to Orgeres and there gleaned 

 what he looked upon as highly satisfactory information. 

 That is how the matter came to be presented by 

 Leverrier to the Academy. 



Vulcan has had every chance to reveal itself since 

 the days of Leverrier and Lescarbault. It has not 

 done so, and the only reasonable conclusion, I think, 

 is that there is no such planet to be revealed. In the 

 year 1876 a German astronomer stationed in China, 

 saw a small black spot on the solar disk and found 

 that it quickly vanished. He promptly telegraphed 

 the news to Europe that Vulcan had at last reappeared. 

 Observations made at Greenwich and Madrid, however, 

 proved that the alleged planet was merely a sunspot 

 which had been carried out of view by the solar 

 rotation. 



On May 19th, 1885, that highly skilled observer, 

 Mr. T. W. Backhouse, of Sunderland, wrote to The 

 Astronomical Register as follows : " Again at the 

 spring node of the accepted orbit of the suppostitious 

 Vulcan the sun was examined here each day (except 

 Sundays) when the weather allowed, over the period 

 during which a transit is possible, according to 

 Leverrier, but with no positive result. It may be 

 added with confidence that no planet-like object, 

 certainly none with motion relative to spots, etc., was 

 visible on the sun's disk at nearly all the times of my 

 observations between March 15th and April 18th." 

 Mr. Backhouse noted that on some six occasions the 

 observation was not good, or not very good, or that 

 the definition was bad. He considered that the ques- 

 tion of Vulcan's existence could only be settled by 



