80 On the Small Planets between Mars and Jupiter. 
Arr. XII.— Considerations on the Group of Small Planets situ- 
ated between Mars and Jupiter ; by M. U.-J. Le Verrier* 
possibility of employing more powerful instruments. The liber- 
ality with which astronomers, who have been recently engaged 
in these examinations, have submitted to the public their facilities 
of discovery, in the publication of costly ecliptic charts, has ret 
dered this labor henceforth easy. The multiplicity of discoveries 
in this field, instead of diminishing the interest in them, is of 4 
nature rather to enhance their importance. For if it has beet 
necessary to give up the hypothesis of Olbers, it may be ho 
‘at least that the knowledge of a great number of sinall planets 
will lead to the discovery of some law in their distribution, a0 
to the determination of the configuration of their principal groups: 
It is hardly credible that these asteroids should be scattered pr0- 
miscuously in all parts of the heavens: besides their having bee! 
discovered hitherto only in a single zone, we must suppose thé 
the same cause which has brought together so much matter 10 
each of the principal planets, has distributed all the rest also into 
separate and distinct groups. a 
e are acquainted at present with the orbits of twenty-s'? 
asteroids (omitting in these remarks the twenty-seventh just dis- 
covered by Mr. Hind). These twenty-six asteroids having bee? 
found under diverse circumstances and by different observers, at 
as we believe capable of furnishing some grounds for generaliz 
.* From the Comptes Rendus, vol. xxxvii, p. 793. 
