Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/312

298 fortunately, two mathematicians proved to be equal to the task of solving it—Adams, in England, and Le Verrier, in France. Each of these astronomers, in independence of the other, succeeded in determining the place of the planet in the sky. The dramatic incident of this discovery was afforded when the mathematicians had done their work. When the place of the planet had been ascertained, then the telescopic search was undertaken to verify if it were indeed the case that a planet hitherto unknown did actually lurk in the spot to which the calculations pointed. Every one who has ever read a book on astronomy is well acquainted with the wonderful manner in which this verification was made. Just where the mathematicians indicated, there was the great planet discovered! To this object the name of "Neptune" has been assigned, and its discovery may be said to mark an epoch in the history of gravitation. It provided a most striking illustration of the truth of those great laws which Newton had discovered.

The latter half of the century will be also remarkable in the history of science from the fact that within that period mankind has been enabled to make some acquaintance with the chemistry of the celestial bodies. It was in 1859 that Kirchhoff and Bunsen first expounded to the world the true meaning of the dark lines in the solar spectrum. In this they were following out a line of reasoning that had been previously suggested by Prof. Sir G. Stokes, of Cambridge, England. Those who are at all conversant with that wonderful branch of knowledge known as spectrum analysis are aware how these discoveries have rendered it possible for us to determine in many cases the actual material elements found in the most distant bodies.

One of the striking results to which this investigation has led is the demonstration of the substantial unity of the materials from which the earth and the various heavenly bodies have been constructed. Those elements which enter most abundantly into the composition of the earth are also the elements which appear to enter most abundantly into the composition of the sun and of the stars. The iron and the hydrogen, the sodium and the many other materials of which our globe is so largely formed, are also the selfsame materials which, in widely different proportions and in very different associations, go to form the heavenly bodies. This conclusion is as interesting as it was unexpected. It might naturally have been thought that, seeing the sun is separated from us by nearly a hundred million miles, and seeing that the stars are separated from us by millions of millions of miles, all these celestial bodies must be constructed in quite a different manner and of substances quite distinct from the substances which we know