5O THE HAMILTON 
x 
ASSOCIATION. 
ing. He puts the series, 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, to each of 
which he adds the number 4. 
Oi SENG Tr Seto Mite or an OO 192 
dirs wa 4 + + + + + 
AMP 7 TOW PDOs Ao) soa LOO 196 
The sums obtained represent, as nearly as possible, the distances 
proportionately of the several planets from the sun, as follows 
Mercury 36,000,000 
Venus 54,000,000 
Earth 95,000,000 
Mars 145,000,000 
Asteroids 250,000,000 
Jupiter 472,000,000 
Saturn 906,000,000 
Uranus I 800,000,000 
Neptune 3,000,000,000 
In the year 1838 the Astronomer Royal of England found 
xX 
by careful calculation that the planet Uranus was out of its 
supposed orbit about a quarter of a million of miles. At first 
it was thought that either some comet was affecting the planet 
or that the laws of gravity were somewhat relaxed at that great 
distance from the sun. These apparent perturbations of 
Uranus set a few men at work to find out the real cause. 
If strict justice were done, Mr. Adams of England should 
have the honor of first making the discovery of another planet in 
However, the Frenchman Leverrier is 
equally entitled, for their calculations were quite independent 
of each other, and his was made public a little earlier. The 
Frenchman had not only discovered the existence of this 
planet but had correctly assigned it its true magnitude, distance 
and velocity, and all by pure mathematics. 
our great solarsystem. 
Here was one 
of the greatest events of an astronomical kind that had ever 
occurred. Human genius had triumphed as never before. 
Who can doubt the greatness of the human mind? Lever- 
rier’s success cannot be regarded, however, as an indepen- 
dent triumph. It was a glorious culmination of the efforts of 
a thousand years. That does not detract from the glory of 
