Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 24.djvu/688

680 {| align="center"
 * colspan=5 | || colspan=3 | (92)
 * colspan=5 |
 * colspan=3 | App. A. R.
 * colspan=3 | App. Decl.
 * colspan=2 | Bresl. M. T.
 * | h. || | m. ||  | s.
 * | h. || | m. ||  | s.
 * | Size.
 * March || | 31
 * | 12 || | 53 ||  | 51.9
 * | 15 || | 39 ||  | 52.32
 * | —23 || | 50 ||  | 26.1
 * | 12.9
 * April || | 1
 * | 1 || | 3 ||  | 2.1
 * | 15 || | 39 ||  | 52.32
 * | —23 || | 9 ||  | 1.9
 * | 12.9
 * }
 * April || | 1
 * | 1 || | 3 ||  | 2.1
 * | 15 || | 39 ||  | 52.32
 * | —23 || | 9 ||  | 1.9
 * | 12.9
 * }
 * }

He proposes for the asteroid the name of Phœbe. Dr. Zitta states that in the short period which he had for observing Phœbe, for an hour after midnight, her motion in R. A. seemed slight and her motion in declination very rapid."

After this, however, for months, nay even to this moment, nothing more was heard of Dr. Zitta of Breslau.

But, one morning, before I was up, Haliburton came banging at my door on D Street. The mood had taken him, as he returned from some private the- atricals at Cambridge, to take the com- fort of the new reading-room at night, and thus express in practice his grati- tude to the overseers of the college for keeping it open through all the twenty- four hours. Poor Haliburton, he did not sleep well in those times ! Well, as he read away on the Astronoinische Nachrichten itself, what should he find but this in German, which he copied for me, and then, all on foot in the rain and darkness, tramped over with, to South Boston :

" The most enlightened head pro- fessor Dr. Gmelin writes to the direc- tor of the Porpol Astronomik at St. Petersburg, to claim the discovery of an asteroid in a very high southern latitude, of a wider inclination of the orbit, as will be noticed, than any aste- roid yet observed.

"Planet's apparent a 2i h - 20"" 5i*'4o. Planet's apparent 8 39 31' n".g. Comparison star a.

" Dr. Gmelin publishes no separate second observation, but is confident that the declination is diminishing. Dr. Gmelin suggests for the name of this ex- tra-zodiacal planet" lo," as appropriate to its wanderings from the accustomed ways of planetary life, and trusts that the very distinguished Herr Peters, the godfather of so many planets, will re- linquish this name, already claimed for the asteroid (85) observed by him, September 15, 1865.

I had run down stairs almost as I was, slippers and dressing-gown being the only claims I had on society. But to me, as to Haliburton, this stuff about " extra-zodiacal wandering " blazed out upon the page, and though there was no evidence that the " most enlight- ened " Gmelin found anything the next night, yet, if his "diminishing" meant anything, there was, with Zitta's obser- vation whoever Zitta might be something to start upon. We rushed upon some old bound volumes of the Record and spotted the "enlightened Gmelin." He was chief of a college at Taganrog, where perhaps they had a spyglass. This gave us the parallax of his observation. Breslau, of course, we knew, and so we could place Zitta's, and with these poor data I went to work to construct, if I could, an orbit for this lo- Phoebe mass of brick and mortar. Haliburton, not strong in spherical trigonometry, looked out log- arithms for me till breakfast, and, as soon as it would do, went over to Mrs. Bowdoin, to borrow her telescope, ours being left at No. 9.

Mrs. Bowdoin was kind, as she al- ways was, and at noon Haliburton ap- peared in triumph with the boxes on P. Nolan's job-wagon. We always em- ploy P., in memory of dear old Phil. We got the telescope rigged, and waited for night, only, alas ! to be disappointed again. lo had wandered somewhere else, and, with all our sweeping back and forth on the tentative curve I had laid out, lo would not appear. We spent that night in vain.

But we were not going to give it up so. Phoebe might have gone round the world twice before she became lo ; might have gone three times, four, five, six, nay, six hundred, who knew? Nay, who knew how far off Phceb-Io