“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, the 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 had really seen the planet whose existence he had himself foretold. Turning to the amateur astronomer, he revealed his personality, and congratulated his humble brother on the magnificent discovery thus confirmed. It was the event in the Orgères physician’s life. Honors poured in upon him. The cross of the Legion of Honor was sent to him from Paris, and his name was at once enrolled in the lists of the leading scientific academies of Europe.
The new orb, whose revolution is performed in 19 days, 17 hours, has been felicitously named Vulcan. If objection be offered to the selection of names for the planets from “Olympus’ dread hierarchy,” it must at least be acknowledged that there is a peculiar fitness in their distribution.
INGENIOUS STRATAGEM OF COLUMBUS
Thou Luther of the darkened deep!
Nor less intrepid, too, than he
Whose courage broke earth’s bigot sleep,
While thine unbarred the sea!