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Page 39
The young mathematician indicated in his conclusions at what point in
the heavens the ultra-Uranian world was then traveling, and where it
might be found. But even these mathematical demonstrations did not
suffice to influence Sir George in his opinions. He was an Englishman!
He refused or neglected to take the necessary steps either to verify
or to disprove the conclusions of Adams. He held in hand the
mathematical computations of that genius from October of 1845 to June
of the following year, when the astronomer Leverrier, of Paris,
published to the world his own tables of computation, proving that the
disturbances in the orbit of Uranus were due to the influence of a
planet beyond, and indicating the place where it might be found. There
was a close agreement between the point indicated by him and that
already designated by Adams.
It seems that this French publication at last aroused Sir George Airy,
who now admitted that the calculations of Adams might be correct in
form and deduction. He accordingly sent word to Professor Challis to
begin a search for the unknown orb. The latter did begin the work of
exploration, and presently saw the planet. But he failed to recognize
it! There it was; but the observer passed it over as a fixed star. As
for Leverrier, he sent his calculations to Dr. Galle, of Berlin; and
that great observer began his search. On the night of the twenty-third
of September, 1846, he not only _saw_ but _caught_ the far-off world.
There it was, disc and all; and a few additional observations
confirmed the discovery.
Hereupon Sir George Airy broke out with a claim that the discovery
belonged to Adams. He was able to show that Adams had anticipated
Leverrier by a few months in his calculations; but the French scholars
were able to carry the day by showing that Adams' work had been void
of results. The world went with the French claim. Adams was left to
enjoy the fame of merit among the learned classes, but the great
public fixed upon Leverrier as the genius who did the work, and Dr.
Galle as his eye.
Several remarkable things followed in the train. It was soon
discovered that both Leverrier and Adams had been favored by chance in
indicating the field of space where Uranus was found. They had both
proceeded upon the principle expressed in Bode's Law. This law
indicated the place of Neptune as 38.8 times the distance of the earth
from the sun. A verification of the result showed that the new-found
planet was actually only thirty times as far as the earth from the
sun. In the case of all the other planets, their distances had been
remarkably co-incident with the results reached by Bode's Law; but
Uranus seemed to break that law, or at least to bend it to the point
of breaking--a result which has never to this day been explained.
It chanced, however, that at the time when the predictions of
Leverrier and Adams were sent, the one sent to Galle and the other to
Challis, Uranus and the earth and the sun were in such relations that
the departure of the orbit of Uranus from the place indicated by
Bode's Law did not seriously displace the planet from the position
which it should theoretically occupy. Thus, after a little searching,
Challis found the new world, and knew it not; Galle found it and knew
it, and tethered it to the planetary system, making it fast in the
recorded knowledge of mankind.
While Daniel O'Connell, the greatest Irishman of the present century,
despairing of the cause of his country, lay dying in Genoa, and while
Zachary Taylor, at the head of a handful of American soldiers was
cooping up the Mexican army in the old town of Monterey, a new world,
37,000 miles in diameter and seventeen times as great in mass as the
little world on which we dwell, was found slowly and sublimely making
its way around the well nigh inconceivable periphery of the solar
system!
EVOLUTION OF THE TELESCOPE.
The development of telescopic power within the present century is one
of the most striking examples of intellectual progress and mastery in
the history of mankind. The first day of the century found us, not,
indeed, where we were left by Galileo and Copernicus in the knowledge
of the skies and in our ability to penetrate their depths, but it did
find us advanced by only moderate stages from the sky-lore of the
past.
The after half of the eighteenth century presents a history of
astronomical investigation and deduction which confirmed and amplified
the preceding knowledge; but that period did not greatly widen the
field of observation. If the sphere of space which had been explored
on the first day of January, 1801, could be compared with that which
is now known and explored by our astronomers, the one sphere would be
to the other even as an apple to the earth.
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