There seems little reason to doubt that a now planet nearer to the sun than Mercury been discovered, and that this planet really is Lescarbault's Vulcan, In our remarks upon the recent eclipse (the Mail, Wednesday, Aug, 7th) we mentioned that the star Theta Ganori, of the fifth magnitude, lay close to the spot where Professor Watson saw a star-like object of between the fourth and fifth magnitudes, But, as we said, we could not believe that an observer 0 skilful bad mistaken Theta Cancri for a planet, We have since received from Washington 'a copy of the chart which was prepared for the wee of those observers (including Professor Watson) who were to search for an intro-mercurial planet. It shows Theta Canon and many stars much smaller, No doubt, then, Watson saw both Theta Canon and the stranger, and probably our surmise was correct that the proximity of the two bodies enabled Watson to indicate so exactly the apparent maguitade of the stranger. Wo uow learn further that he lad prepared for the search in euch a way as to be able to determine the exact position of any unknown Guring totality. "He had provided his equal Janetary body which might be near the ann torial with paper circles on which to mark the difference of po body not marked on the chart.
But this is not all, If Watson had merely
bourhood, it would not have been even certain recognized a strange star in the gun's neigh: that he had seen a planet, For anew star might have shone forth in the Crab, even as in May, 1866, " new star appeared in the Northern Crown, and in November, 1876, another appeared in the Swan, And though the prob ability would have been enormously in favour of the theory that the stranger was a planet, doubts might very reasonably have beau entertained respecting the identity of the new Further evidence had been fortheomiog, Such jlanet and Lescarbault's Vulcan, unless some
evidence has been obtained, and, when taken in connexion with all the known circumstances of the case, it appears to us to establish beyond reasonable doubt the real existence of the planet which bad so long been regarded as a myth, A brief sketch of the history of this will and to render in-planet will probably interest our readers, "ft telligible the evidence which seems to identify Watson's new planet with Lescarbault's 'The great French mathematician Lo' from a careful study of the motion of Mercury, discovered that the greater axis of that planet's path was shifting more rapidly than it ought to do according to the theory-of gravitation applied to the known members of the solar system, The reader must not run away with that we speak of a very obvious, still less of any very remarkable, discrepancy. 'The excess of motion left unaccounted for wa: such that one complete revolution of the a {or technically one complete circuit of the perihelion) would be made in excess of what theory in the course of about 30,000 year: 'a slight' discrepancy, and, one would scarcely worth noting, Butit is in such di that astronomy has ever recognized the of important discoveries. Leversier sly announced, as the result of his discovery, that between the sun and Mercury there unjust be matter as yet unrecognized by astronomers, It might be a single planet, or a group of small planets, or a mighty disc of cosmical dust, but unquestionably matter whose combined mass is comparable with that of our own earth exists between the sun and the orbit of Mercury. Loverrier himself in clined to the opinion that the disturbing body was not a single planet, but a ring of small bodies,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.