SCIENCE. 



293 



SCIENCE: . 



A Weekly Record of Scientific 

 Progress. 



JOHN MI CHE LS, Editor. 



Published at 



TRIBUNE BUILDING, NEW YORK. 



P. O. Box 3838. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1881. 



NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The writer of a paper " On Ether" will much oblige by for- 

 warding his name and address. 



THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE. 

 The brilliant theoretical discovery of this planet by 

 Leverrier and Adams, will be distinctly remembered 

 by many of our readers. Soon after the publication 

 of the mathematical investigation made by the two 

 astronomers who had won so much glory, Professor 

 Benjamin Pierce, of Harvard College, startled the 

 scientific world by the announcement that after all 

 this discovery was only a happy accident, and that the 

 planet found by Galli, in accordance with the direc- 

 tions of Leverrier, was not the planet " to which geo- 

 metrical analysis had directed the telescope." This 

 statement by Professor Pierce has, we believe, found 

 but little credence among European astronomers and 

 mathematicians. Among those who were well quali- 

 fied to judge, and who may be considered as free from 

 from national prejudice on this question, we mention 

 Hansen, the well-known theoretical astronomer of 

 Germany, and Jacobi, one of the ablest mathema- 

 ticians of the same country ; both of whom expressed 

 the opinion that Professor Pierce was himself mis- 

 taken. In a posthumous book recently published on 

 " Ideality in the Physical Sciences," edited by his son, 

 Professor J. M. Pierce, the present professor of math- 

 ematics in Harvard University, Professor Pierce reit- 

 erates his former opinion on the discovery of Neptune. 

 It appears that a few years before his death he had 

 made a careful review of his former investigations, and 

 says, p. 173 : "I strictly adhere to the correctness of 

 my early statement." This opinion seems to be 

 shared also by Professor J. M. Pierce, who says, p. 

 201 of the Appendix : " It is to be regretted that the 



correction of the error was not received, on the part 

 of the French astronomer, with the magnanimity and 

 fairness which it is always painful not to find associa- 

 ted with high intellectual power." 



Intrinsically, the question raised by Professor Pierce 

 is an interesting one, and the whole matter seems to 

 us worthy of a new and careful discussion. It may 

 well be doubted whether the argument used by Pro- 

 fessor Pierce, that there is a change in the character 

 of the perturbations near the distance of 35.3, will 

 apply to the method employed by Leverrier 2nd 

 Adams in their discussion of the perturbations of 

 Uranus. This method is so interesting that we invite 

 the attention of students of theoretiral astronomy to 

 this question, which seems to us capable of a com- 

 plete and definitive mathematical solution. 



VIVISECTION. 



Dr. Darwin in a letter to a friend has expressed his 

 views upon vivisection. He writes : 



" I know that Physiology cannot possibly progress ex- 

 cept by means of experiments on living animals, and I 

 feel the deepest conviction that he who retards the pro- 

 gress of Physiology commits a crime against mankind. 

 Anyone who remembers, as I can, the state of this science 

 half a century ago must admit that it has made immense 

 progress, and is now progressing at an ever-increasing 

 rate. What improvements in medical practice may be 

 directly attributed to physiological research is a question 

 which can be properly discussed only by those physiolo- 

 gists and medical practitioners who have studied the his- 

 tory of these subjects ; but so far as I can learn, the 

 benefits are already very great. No one, unless he is 

 grossly ignorant of what Science has done for mankind, 

 can entertain any doubt of the incalculable benefits which 

 will be derived from Physiology, not only by man, but by 

 the lower animals." 



PROBABLE BRANCHIAL ORIGIN OF THE THY- 

 ROID AND THYMUS GLANDS. 



By S. V. Clevenger, M.D. 



There are many reasons for believing that the thyroid 

 and thymus are rudimentary gills, one of the main ob- 

 jections to the view being the structure of these bodies, 

 but in the light of modern biology, structure is almost 

 meaningless in homologizing, besides, the tissues of these 

 parts are not the same in all animals. Owen (Vol. I. p. 

 565) says the thymus appears in Vertebrates with the es- 

 tablishment of lungs as the main or exclusive respiratory 

 organ. In Siren and Proteus the thymus is wanting, as 

 in all fishes. Gegenbaur (p. 554) speaks of the thyroid 

 as an organ with unknown physiological relations, and 

 that "in fishes it is placed not far from the point at which 

 it was formed, that is, at the anterior end of the trunk of 

 the branchial anterior and between it and the copula of 

 the hyoid arch. In amphibia near the larynx, and is set 

 on the inner surface of the posterior comna of the hyoid." 

 Gegenbaur considers it as an organ of use among Tuni- 

 cata. This latter idea, as well as the one I have ad- 

 vanced, needs verification. I am unwilling to devote 

 more time to the subject until I can ascertain whether 

 some one has not preceded me in announcing the homol- 

 ogy, if it be really one. Much light can be thrown upon 

 the disease known as Goitre by clearing up this point. 



