THE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
JANUARY, 1885. 
I. THE MISAPPREHENSIONS OF LE VERRIER 
AND ADAMS 
AS EVIDENCE FOR THE 
EXISTENCE AND POSITION OF TWO 
PLANETS BEYOND NEPTUNE. 
By the Count O. Reichenbach. 
'ENDING Problems in Astronomy ’’was the Vale- 
dictory Address, on September 5th, 1884, of Prof. 
A. C. Young, past President of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science. There is 
more than one passage in this interesting paper about which 
I would like to say a word, but I confine myself to one 
subject. 
Mr. Young says “ When it is not ” “ unlikely that some 
day the searches for asteroids may be rewarded by the dis- 
covery of some great world, as yet unknown, slowly moving 
in the outer desolation beyond the remotest of the present 
planetary family;” when “some configuration in certain 
cometary orbits, and some almost evanescent peculiarities 
in Neptune’s motions have been thought to point to the 
existence of such a world, and there is no evidence nor even 
a presumption against it ; ” and when “ there is special 
reason for attempts to determine the rotation periods of the 
planets, in the faCt that there is very possibly some connec- 
tion between the periods, on the one hand, and, on the other, 
on the planets’ distances from the Sun, their diameters, and 
VOL. VII. (THIRD SERIES). // B 
