76 PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. 



of the least value admitted by Sir G. Airy, by nearly 700,000 

 miles. 



The obvious significance of this result should be, one 

 would suppose, that Delisle's method is not quite so effective 

 as Sir G. Airy supposed ; and the wide discordance between 

 the several results, of which the result thus deduced is the 

 mean, should prove this, one would imagine, beyond all 

 possibility of question. The Astronomer Royal thinks 

 differently, however. In his opinion, the wide difference 

 between his result and the mean of all the most valued 

 results by other astronomers, indicates the superiority of 

 Delisle's method, not its inadequacy to the purpose for 

 which it has been employed. 



Time will shortly decide which of these views is correct ; 

 but, for my own part, I do not hesitate to express my own 

 conviction that the sun's distance lies very near the limits 

 indicated by Newcomb, and therefore is several hundred 

 thousand miles less than the minimum distance allowed by 

 the recently announced results. 



