Astronomy: 131 
If the English astronomers had now searched the wom 42% es but 
a few degrees on each side of the point here ni we Adams 
tributed to a want of confidence in the ue Or if Mr. Adams’s 
note had then been printed, he would have secured the glory which is 
now, according to the recognized rule, due to M. Le Verrier. So easily 
The coincidence between the position for the planet assigned in Le 
Verrier’s paper of June 1, 1946, and that which Mr. Adams had given, 
was so remarkable, that Pr rof. Challis u ndertook to search for the body, 
vatory, one of the largest wet sa in the wor He commenced his 
sweeps July 29, 1846, and between this date walk the time of the arrival 
of the news of the discovery at Berlin, he actually secured two rva- 
eee: of ~ planet, but without recognizing them until then. These 
places 
P. D. 
1846, Aug., 44 ie 36" 25 Qyh 580 14°70 102 57 322 
12 3 26 21 57 26°13 103 2 O2 
pare a letter to Mr. Airy, dated Sept. 2, 1846, Mr. Adams gave results 
mewhat different from those communicated in October, 1845; the dif 
faceons being due to the assumption of a mean distance about one-thirtieth 
less. “He suggested, moreover, that “ by still farther diminishing the dis- 
tance, the agreement between the theory and the late observations migh 
be rendered si and the eccentricity reduced at the same time to a 
very small quantit 
The new planet has doubtless been seen at all the observatories in this 
country, and may be easily detected by a good spy-glass. In the Sidereal 
Messenger, Vol. i, No. 6, Prof. Mitchel, the director of the Cincinnati 
. . x 4 upon 
the body with the large refractor. —— received, Oct. 28th, the news 
of the discovery, he directed the telescope, soon after 6 r. M., to the re- 
gion of the heavens occupied by the planet, — his place at the finder, 
with a disc round, clear, and beaut as that of i cigs 
eye was now placed to the eye piece of the great refractor an 
unspeakable pleasure, I found a penta disc, so well defined, —_ with- 
Measure the diameter of the disc, six measures be ing made by his er 
ant, and six by himself; the mean of the whole aie 2 523. is 
somewhat less than the result given by Schumacher. The real ineaasied 
of the planet tin poohahly more than 40,000 miles. 
