267 



into provinces of knowledge which were somewhat foreign to his 

 own, that he was accustomed to quote the adage of Seneca : " Soleo 

 €t in alie7ia castra transire, non tanquam transfuga^ sed tanquam 

 explorator." 



Blumenbach had long been considered as the patriarch of the 

 University of Gottingen, and was allowed the full privileges attached 

 to his distinguished reputation, to the memory of his long services, 

 and to the respect due to his venerable old age ; he retained his 

 usual cheerfulness, his memory, and much of his ancient activity, 

 until nearly the close of his life. He died on the 22nd of January 

 last, in the 88th year of his age, a memorable proof that the tran- 

 quil pursuits of science and the gentle stimulus of constant though 

 not laborious employments are equally favourable to contentment of 

 mind and length of days. 



The name of the venerable Dr. Olbers, of Bremen, must be for 

 ever memorable in the annals of astronomy, as the discoverer of two 

 planets inoursystem. He was a member of that remarkable association 

 of twenty-four astronomers which the indefatigable Baron de Zach of 

 Gotha had formed towards the close of the last century, who under- 

 took the vigilant observation of as many zones of the heavens, with a 

 general view of discovering new comets and planets, and of recording 

 any remarkable phenomena that might occur. Their zeal in the 

 prosecution of these researches had been stimulated by the recent 

 discovery of Herschel, as well as by the revival of a suggestion 

 made by Kepler of the probable existence of a planet between 

 Mars and Jupiter, in conformity with one of those mystical ana- 

 logies, which might have been treated as the visionary dreams 

 of an enthusiast, if they had not been so intimately connected with 

 the discovery of the great laws forming the true basis of all cor- 

 rect knowledge of the system of the universe. The absence like- 

 wise of a planet at the distance from the sun, represented by 28, that 

 of the earth being 10, interfered with the completeness of an em- 

 pirical law which Bode of Berlin had suggested, and was not with- 

 out its influence in confirming their faith in these extraordinary an- 

 ticipations. The labours of this Association had been hardly organ- 

 ized, when the remarkable discovery of Ceres by Piazzi on the first 

 day of the present century, in almost the precise position which 

 Bode's singular law had assigned to it, seemed at once to convert 

 their dreams into realities. Dr. Olbers calculated a circular, and 

 Gauss an elliptic orbit for the same planet ; and so wonderful was 

 the accuracy of the first approximation to the elements which the 

 latter had made, that they enabled Olbers to re-discover it on the 

 1st of January 1802; exactly one year after it had been first ob- 

 served. It was in consequence of having formed a configuration 

 of stars in the geocentric route of this planet, with a view to its 

 being more readily found, that he discovered Pallas on the 2.5th of 

 March of the same year*, at nearly the same distance from the sunf, 



* " Ueber einen neuen von Dr. Gibers in Bremen endeckten hbchst son- 

 derbaren cometen." Zach's Monatliche Correspondenz for May, 1802. 

 t If the distance of the earth from the sun be 1, that of Ceres is 2 '7674, 



