Note 12 — Chapter X

Since the first edition of this memoir, one of the most extraordinary results ever obtained in astronomy by the use of these same methods of investigation has been made known. Messrs. Leverrier, a French astronomer, and Adams of England, calculated very exactly the general characteristics and course of a planet, which, from the disturbances of the courses of other well-known planets, was supposed to exist. In 1846, Leverrier requested a German astronomer to point his telescope, at a certain time, towards a certain part of the heavens, and there was the long-suspected planet, previously never seen! It was named Neptune. It is sixty times larger than our earth, and its orbit is nearly thirty times farther distant from the sun.