Pulci, the friend of Lorenzo de Medici, in his Morgante Maggiore, written before the voyage of Columbus and before the physical discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus, introduces this remarkable prophecy; (alluding to the vulgar belief that the Columns of Hercules were the limits of the earth.) Know that this theory is false: his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Dante, two centuries before, put this language into the mouth of Ulysses: The broad Atlantic first my keel impressed, I saw the sinking barriers of the west, And boldly thus addressed my hardy crew :- And find new worlds unknown to mortal view. He then proceeds to mention the discovery of a mountainous island, after five months' sailing. The probability of a short western passage to India is men. tioned by Aristotle, De Cœlo, ii., a view confirmed in stronger terms afterwards by Edrisi, the Arabian geographer, Strabo, Francis Bacon, Cardinal de Alliaco (Imago Mundi), and Toscanelli. Triumphs of Engenuity. Though there were many giants of old in physic and philosophy, yet I say, with Didacus Stella, "A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.”-BURTON, Anat. of Melancholy. THE DISCOVERY OF THE PLANET NEPTUNE. In his solitary study sat a young man, pale and thoughtful. His eyes were fixed upon myriads of numerals, through whose complexity his far-reaching mind saw into the untold mysteries of the solar universe. His glass was not pointed to the heavens, his eyes looked not out upon the stars, but his soul, in deep abstraction, pondered over the perturbations of Uranus, as noted for many a year before by many a casual observer. He measured the intensity and the direction of the disturbing questioned the planet that was seen and known con forces, cerning the unknown cause of its irregularities, and compelled a star, itself beyond the reach of the common eye, to tell of the whereabouts, the volume, the orbit, of its fellow, which no eye, an optic-glass, had ever yet seen, and whose very even through existence then came for the first time upon the mental vision of the youthful sage through the power of numerical calcula tion. His But it was like that higher and better faith of which spake the great Apostle of the Gentiles,-fast and sure. Full his discovery, Le Verrier offered his conclusions to the Academy; but learned men, when assembled in bodies, give to enthusiasts but a cold reception. Le Verrier, sure of his position, then wrote to Dr. Galle, the Astronomer-Royal in Berlin, asking him to point his powerful glass to a certain quarter of the heavens, where must be found at that time the last of the planets. And there it was; and thence it was traced upon its mighty way, bending, like was a faith. It was the evidence of things not seen. its fellows, to the distant influence of its great centre, the sun. There is something almost affecting in the thought that Le Verrier should have been denied the first direct sight of the sublime star towards which his soul had been so long leaning and which had so long been within his mental vision. It was, however, a fortunate loss, since his adversaries would have charged him with having found by chance what he detected by reason, and thus have placed in a common category one of the most magnificent discoveries of modern times, a beautiful illustration of the gigantic power of calculation. The distance of Neptune from the sun is 2,810,000,000 miles, and the time required for its orbital revolution, 164 vears. Its diameter is 41,500 miles. THE DISCOVERY OF THE PLANET VULCAN. Leverrier, encouraged and made illustrious by his success in exploring those infinite spaces beyond the orbit of Herschel, turned his attention to the innermost circles-the central region of our solar system. By theoretical demonstrations, based on irregularities in the movements of Mercury, he proved the existence of some planet or planets lying still more closely within the light and heat of the sun. While proceeding with his calculations, he received a letter from Lescarbault—a poor physician of Orgères, a village in the department of Eure and Loire, in France-announcing the discovery of an intraMercurial body, making its transit, in appearance like a small black spot, across the disk of the sun. Possessed of a sensitive and modest soul,—as all true lovers of science are, the doctor at first doubted the reality of his discovery, and hesitated to make it known. It was only after vainly waiting nine months, to verify his observation by another view of the object, that he prepared a letter, narrating what he thought he had seen, and sent it to the great Leverrier. The latter had just published an article on Mercury's perturbations in the Kosmos of Paris. Astonished at this coincident proof of the correctness of his theory, he lost no time in starting for the village of Oigères, to obtain a personal interview with the humble discoverer of the new orb. The following account of the meeting was reported in the Kosmos by the Abbé Moigne, who took it from the lips of Leverrier himself: Leverrier left Paris for Orgères, in company with Vallee, four days after the date of Lescarbault's letter. Orgères was twelve miles from the nearest railroad-station, and the party had to foot it across the country. On their arrival, Leverrier knocked loudly at the door, which was opened by the doctorhimself; but his visitor declined to give his name. The simple, modest, timid Lescarbault, small in stature, stood abashed before the tall Leverrier, who, in blunt intonation, addressed him thus: "It is you, then, sir, who pretend to have discovered the intra-Mercurial planet, and who have committed the grave offence of keeping your discovery secret for nine months! I come to do justice to your pretensions, to warn you that you have either been dishonest or deceived. Tell me unequivocally what you have seen." The lamb-like doctor, trembling at this rude summons, stammered out the following reply: "On the 26th of March (1859), about four o'clock, I turned my telescope to the sun, when, to my surprise, I saw, at a small distance from its margin, a black spot, well defined, and perfectly round, advancing upon the disk of the sun. A customer called me away, and, hurrying him off as fast as I could, I came back to my glass, when I found the round spot had continued its transit, and I saw it disappear from the opposite margin of the sun, after a projection upon it of an hour and a half. I did not seize the precise moment of contact. The spot was on the disk when I first saw it. I measured its distance from the margin, and counted the time it took to make the same distance, and so approximated the instant of its entry." "To count time is easy to say," said Leverrier; "but where is your chronometer?" "My chronometer is this watch, that beats only minutes,-the faithful companion of my professional labors." "What! with that old watch? How dare you talk of counting seconds? My suspicions are too well founded." "Pardon me, sir, but I have a pendulum that nearly beats seconds, and I will bring it down to show you." He goes above-stairs and brings down a silken thread, tho upper end of which he fastens to a nail, and brings to rest the ivory ball at the lower end. He then starts it from the vertical, and its oscillations beat seconds very nearly. "This is not enough, sir: how do you count these seconds while in the act of observing ?" "My profession is to feel pulses and count their pulsations, and my pendulum puts my seconds into my ears, and I have no difficulty in counting them." "But where is your telescope?" The doctor showed Leverrier his glass, which was one of Cauchoix's best. It was four inches in diameter, and mounted on a rude stand. He took the wondering astronomer-imperial to his roof, where he was building a rude revolving platform and dome. "This is all very well; but where is your original memorandum?" The doctor ran and got his almanac, or Connaissance des Temps, and in it he finds a square piece of paper, used as a marker, and on it, all covered with grease and laudanum, is the original memorandum! "But you have falsified the time of emergence. It is four minutes too late by this memorandum." "It is; but the four minutes are the error of my watch, which I corrected by sidereal time, by the aid of this little telescope." "But how did you determine the two angular co-ordinates of the point of contact, of the entry and emergence of the planet, and how did you measure the chord of the arc between them?" Having explained the simple method which he pursued in the premises to the satisfaction of the astronomer, the latter next inquired after his rough drafts of calculation for determining the distance of the planet from the sun. "My rough draughts! Paper is scarce with us. I am a joiner as well as an astronomer. I write on my boards, and when I am done, I plane them off and begin again; but I think I have preserved them." On visiting the shop, they found the board, with all its lines and numbers still unobliterated ! The Parisian savant was now convinced that Lescarbault |