| 
416 ' Correspondence of J. Nickles. 
1 
spread that the discovery of such a planet was no new thing. 
these reports, the most persistent was this, that such a late hailtes been 
observed towards the commencement of the year 1859, by an amateur 
astronomer, a poor country doctor. Leverrier, resolving to trace this 
story to its source, went perscnally to Orgéres, a village in the Depart 
yor of Eure and Loir, where this doctor resided: Great w as the emotion 
f Dr. Lescarbault on seeing before him the illustrious director of the 
Otserat ory of Pari He had little difficulty in satisfying Leverrier 
the observation had rea ally — made. He said, “On the 2 pit! i 
, oI 
859, in a letter from Leverrier to Mr. Faye. Very soon oe 
) 
; 
pene: C sdisdies to mca that the chord of the sun’s dise fe ; 
by the planet was 9/17”; and it would have required 4% 26m 48°10 
traverse the diameter of the sun. He estimates a seer diameter of 
is, as M. Leverrier announced, a group of small planets between Mercury 
and the sun. Observers should give special attention to this subject a se 
the next total solar eclipse, 
The new planet has not been officially named, but it is already desigy 
rage i. Vulcan. — Its return is looked for at Paris at the end of March 
or the beginning of April. ‘ 
This discoy nae wee ak a matter of mere chance. Dr. Leseatbaal : 
having observed the transit of Mercury, on the 8th of May, Lace bon 
ceived the idea that if there were between the earth and ihe san a5f 
planetary body besides Venus and Mereury, it must also sometimes rh 
the sun; and that by frequently nbaer rie its dise, such body ™ nights 
detected thereon as a black point.* 
Bic caetc fortune and wikkwdt means of elec ae . 
apparatus for Shien self, and went: to fee in astronomy very 
— did in chemist 
* Tn 1836 and 1837, M. Pastontf of Buchholz 2 observed, ae times & 4 
small, round black s errs 
and each time 
satellite. Messrs. E. CO. Herrick 
ored to rediscover those Evian by observing ihe sun’s disc, twice 
tah vey , and by exploring the vicinity of. she sun with the te oved tl 
fi ront witha ‘past cbuitrd 1 ibe , blackened wi These efforts pr 
(See this Journal, Noy 1859, vol. xxvii ae 445-6.) The 
intra- mercurial planet was also proposed, many years since, 
his researches on a maximum and minimum of the solar heat. 
