NOVEMBER 3, 1899.] 
in States where geological or geographical 
surveys were in progress. 
Only an astronomer can follow the math- 
ematical intricacies of Peirce’s remarkable 
announcement concerning the discovery of 
the planet Neptune. 
This Planet [says President Hill] was dis- 
covered in September, 1846, in consequence of 
the request of Leverrier to Galle that he should 
search the zodiac in the neighborhood of longi- 
tude 325°, for a theoretical cause of certain per- 
turbations of Uranus. But Peirce showed that 
the discovery was a happy accident; not that 
Leverrier’s calculations had not been exact, 
and wonderfully laborious, and deserving of 
the highest honor, but because there were, in 
fact, two very different solutions of the pertur- 
bations of Uranus possible: Leverrier had cor- 
rectly calculated one, but the actual planet in 
the sky solved the other; and the actual planet 
and Leverrier’s ideal one lay in the same direc- 
tion from the earth only in 1846.  Peirce’s 
labors upon this problem, while showing him to 
be the peer of any astronomer, were in no way 
directed against Leverrier’s fame as a mathe- 
matician ; on the contrary, he testified in the 
strongest manner that he had examined and 
verified Leverrier’s labors sufficiently to estab- 
lish their marvellous accuracy and minuteness, 
as well as their herculean amount.* 
His greatest contribution to astronomy, 
however, was in connection with the rings 
of Saturn. He demonstrated that the rings, 
if fluid, could not be sustained by the 
planet, that satellites could not sustain a 
solid ring, but that sufficiently large and 
numerous satellites could sustain a fluid 
ring, and that the actual satellites of Saturn 
were sufficient for that purpose. 
Peirce was a teacher, and his teaching 
is referred to by one of his students as 
‘the most stimulating intellectual influence 
I ever encountered.’+ As an executive 
officer in charge of the coast survey, and 
* Thomas Hill in The Memorial Collection, p. 8. 
+ Thomas- Wentworth Higginson, in The Memorial 
Collection, p. 31. 
SCIENCE. 
633 
also of the American Ephemeris, it is said 
that : 
The reports of that survey and the tables of 
the Ephemeris have rapidly raised the scientific 
reputation of America, which, in 1843, stood in 
astronomy among the lowest of civilized na- 
tions, and is now among the highest—a change 
which was by no means ungrateful to Peirce’s 
strongly patriotic feeling, and which he could 
not but know was as much due to himself as to 
any other person.* 
Asa mathematician it was said at the 
time of his death that ‘ the late Professor 
Peirce’s merits will rank with the marvel- 
lous achievements of Bernoulli, Kuler, and 
Laplace.” + 
President Hill closes his sketch of Peirce 
with the following words : 
While Professor Peirce has the tenacity of 
grasp, and power of endurance, which enable 
him to make the most intricate and tedious nu- 
merical computations, he is still more distin- 
guished by intensity and fervor of action in 
every part of his nature, an enthusiasm for 
whatever is noble and beautiful in the world or 
in art, in fiction or real life ; an exalted moral 
strength and purity; a glowing imagination 
which soars into the seventh heavens ; an in- 
sight and a keenness of external observations 
which makes the atom as grand to him as a 
planet; a depth of reverence which exalts him 
while he abases himself. { 
I prefer the stanzas of Holmes’ Memorial 
poem, beginning with : 
To him the wandering stars revealed 
The secrets in their cradle sealed ; 
The far-off, frozen sphere that swings 
Through ether, zoned with lucid rings ; 
The orb that rolls in dim eclipse, 
Wide wheeling round its long ellipse,— 
His name Urania writes with these, 
And stamps it on her Pleiades. 2 
It was at the Toronto meeting just ten 
years ago that the Association was honored 
* The Nation, New York, October 14, 1880. 
} Boston Daily Advertiser, October 7, 1880. 
{ The Memorial Collection, p. 11. 
¢ Atlantic Monthly. 
