20 bulletin of the 



151st Meeting. December 1, 1878. 



The President in the Chair. 

 Fifty-one members and visitors present. 



The election of Mr. John Walter Osborne as a member of 



the Society was announced. 



Mr. Henry Reed read a paper on 



THE PHYSIOLOGY Of CIVILIZATION. 



Remarks were made by Messrs. Woodward, Powell, Hark» 

 NESS, Hayden, Newcomb, White, Chipman, Dutton, Alvord, 

 Gill, J. D. Cox, Elliott, Mason, Parker, and Dall, gene- 

 rally controverting views advanced by Mr. Reed. 



Mr. Asaph Hall made the following communication 



on the supposed discovery op a trans-neptunian planet at 

 the u. s. naval observatory in 1850. 



In October, 1850, Mr. James Ferguson, Assistant Astronomer 

 of the Naval Observatory, while observing the planet Hygeia, 

 observed on four nights an object of the 9-^ magnitude which 

 afterwards seemed to have disappeared. A communication on 

 this subject was made by the Superintendent of the Observatory, 

 Mr. Maui'y, to the Secretary of the Navy, and Mr. Maury's let- 

 ter, together with Mr. Ferguson's observations, were published 

 in Gould^s Journal, Vol. II., p. 53. Mr. Hind, of London, dis- 

 cussing these observations, came to the conclusion that the object 

 observed by Mr. Ferguson was a trans-Neptunian planet, at a 

 distance from the sun of "more than 1:5Y, and a period of above 

 1600 years." Gould's Journal, Yol. II., p. IS. 



Recently Professor C. H. F. Peters, Director of the Litchfield 

 Observatory of Hamilton College, has given tiiis matter a critical 

 examination, and has found that the true explanation is that Mr 

 Ferguson made a mistake in observing the difference of declina- 

 tion, and that by making the proper corrections the whole series 

 of observations comes into harmony, and the missing object proves 

 to be a well-known fixed star. 



Mr. Hall, on examining the original observing books of Mr. 



