History of the Discovery of the Planet Neptune. 199 
eral. He contemplated a long siege—yet his plan rendered ulti- 
mate success almost certain. Dr. Galle took the citadel by storm 
—yet his success must have astonished himself as much as it did 
the world. He had no reason to expect so easy a conquest. 
Some difficulty at first occurred in deciding upon a name for 
the new planet. ‘T‘he Bureau des Longitudes of Paris were in fa- 
vor of calling it Neptune, and this name was given out by Le 
Verrier in private letters to different astronomers in England and 
Germany. Subsequently, Le Verrier commissioned his friend 
Arago to give the planet a name; and Arago declared he would 
never call it by any other name than Le Verrier. When Sir 
William Herschel discovered a planet, he named it Georgium Si- 
dus; and the name of “the Georgian” is still retained in the Eng- 
lish Nautical Almanac. But this name being offensive to the na- 
tional pride of the French, they at first called the planet Herschel, 
and afterwards Uranus. The latter name has come into exclu- 
sive use on the continent; but Arago, in order to secure an honor 
to his friend Le Verrier, proposed to restore the name of Herschel, 
and also that each of the smaller planets should receive the name 
of its discoverer. ef 
The astronomers of Europe refused to concur in the decision 
of Arago. There are objections to this principle of nomencla- 
ture, some of which have considerable weight. e name of 
the discoverer of a planet may happen to be immoderately long, 
or ludicrously short; difficult to pronounce, or comically signifi- 
cant. hen also, if the same astronomer should be fortunate 
enough to discover more than one planet, we should be obliged 
to repeat the surname with a prefix. Already we have two plan- 
ets discovered by Olbers; two discovered by Hencke, and two 
by Hind 
_ Moreover it often happens that several persons contribute an 
important part in the discovery of the same body. ‘lhus the 
planet Ceres was first discovered by Piazzi in the course of .a se- 
ries of observations having a different object in view. After a 
few weeks, the planet became invisible from its proximity to the 
sun. Astronomers computed the orbit from Piazzi’s observations, 
and searched for it some months afterwards, when it ought again 
to have come into view. But the planet could not be found. 
Ceres was entirely lost, and would not have been seen again, had 
hot Gauss, by methods of his own invention, computed a much 
tive, and enabled De Zach to find it immediately upon pointing 
his telescope to the heavens. ‘To Gauss, therefore, belongs the 
honor of being the second discoverer of Ceres; and the second 
discovery was far more glorious than the first. 
The discovery of the new planet has been justly characterized 
y Professor Airy, as “the effect of a movement of the age.” 
