872 SPECIAL RESULTS TN THE URANOLOGICAL 



Within the solar domain, the attention of observers was 

 long directed to the augmentation of the members of par- 

 tial systems (the moons or satellites revolving around the 

 primary planets), and to the discovery of new planets in the 

 remote regions beyond Saturn and Uranus. Since the acci- 

 dental discovery of Ceres by Piazzi, and more especially since 

 the systematically-planned discovery of Astrsea by Hencke, as 

 well as since the great improvement in star-maps ( 604 ) (those 

 of the Berlin Academy contain all stars of the 9th and many 

 of the 10th magnitude), there is opened to astronomical 

 activity in a nearer region of the Universe, a rich and 

 perhaps almost inexhaustible field of research. It is a dis- 

 tinguishing merit of the Astronomical Jahrbuch or Almanac, 

 published in my paternal city by Encke, Director of the 

 Berlin Astronomical Observatory, with the co-operation of 

 Dr. Wolfers, that the Ephemerides of the increasing 

 host of the small planets are treated in it with 

 peculiar fulness. Hitherto the region nearest to the orbit 

 of Mars appears the most fully occupied; but already 

 "the breadth of the entire zone, as given by the diffe- 

 rence between the Radii Vectores of the nearest peri- 

 helion (Victoria), and of the farthest aphelion (Hygeia), 

 considerably exceeds the distance of Mars from the Sun" 



(605). 



I have already noticed ( 6o6 ) the large amount of the ex- 

 centricity of the orbits of the small planets of which the 

 least are those of Ceres, Egeria, and Yesta, and the greatest 

 those of Juno, Pallas, and Iris as well as the inclinations 

 of the orbits to the Ecliptic, ranging from Pallas 34 37', 

 and Egeria 16 33', to Hygeia 3 47'. I here subjoin a 

 tabular view of the elements of the small planets, for which 

 I am indebted to my friend Dr. Galle. 



