132 Scientific Intelligence. 



merits are wholly similar to those of the otolites pertaining to the ears 

 in the perfect animal. The size of these otolites varies from ^ to ^ 

 of a line. The number increases gradually to twenty, when the ani- 

 mal quits its shell, and at this time the diameter of the vesicle is ¥ V of 

 a line. They continue multiplying, and are one to two hundred in 

 number in the adult, when the vesicle is T \ to T ^ of a line in diameter. 

 The development of the hearing apparatus is the same essentially in 

 the Physa, Paludina, and other terrestrial Gasteropods. In bivalves, 

 the vesicle contains only one otolite of large size, which fills the cavity 

 of the vesicle. 



* 



IV. A ST RON 031 Y. 



1. The Planet Neptune, and its Relations to the Perturbations of 

 Uranus.— In the Boston Courier of April 30, 1847, Prof. Benjamin 

 Peirce, of Harvard University, announces the following conclusions: 



" The problem of tTie perturbations of Uranus admits of three solu- 

 tions, which are decidedly different from each other, and from those of 

 LeVerrier and Adams, and equally complete with theirs. The present 

 place of the theoretical planet, which might have caused the observed 

 irregularities in the motions of Uranus, would, in two of them, be about 

 one hundred and twenty degrees from that of Neptune, the one being 

 behind and the other before this planet. If the above geometers bad 

 fallen upon either of these solutions, instead of that which was obtain- 

 ed, Neptune would not have been discovered in consequence of geo- 

 metrical prediction. The following are the approximate elements for 

 the three solutions at the epoch of Jan. 1, 1847 : 



Mean longitude, - . 319° 79 199 



Long, of perihelion, - - 148 219 188 



Eccentricity, . . 0-12 0-07 0-16 



In each of them (the mass of the sun being unity) the mass is 0-0001 187. 

 The period of sidereal revolution is double that of Uranus. It will be 

 observed that the mean distance in all these cases is the same with that 

 of Neptune, and that in the first of them, the present direction is not 

 more than seven degrees from it ; and in another solution which I have 

 obtained, the present direction is almost identical with Neptune's. But 

 the coincidence fails in a most important point; for, whereas Walker 

 and Adams both demonstrate, from incontrovertible data, and a simple 

 but indisputable argument, that the new planet cannot be more than 90° 

 from its perihelion, either of these two latter geometrical planets would 

 now be in aphelion and at much too great a distance from the sun. 



" All my attempts to reconcile the observed motions of Neptune with 

 the assumption that it is the principal source of the unexplained irreg- 

 ularities in the motions of Uranus, have been frustrated. Whatever orbit 

 »s attributed to this planet in my analysis, whether Walker's, or Valz's, 

 or Kncke's, or Adams's, or any other which I can suppose, and which is 

 not unquestionably irreconcilable with observation ; and whatever may be 

 supposed to be its mass, I cannot materially diminish the amount of re- 

 sidual perturbation, but leave it full as great as it was previous to Galle's 



