596. ASTRONOMY, Planet Herschel.—
I
shall send you * * * the “Connoissance
de Tems” for the years 1786 and 1787, being
all as yet published. You will find in these the
tables for the planet Herschel, as far as the
observations hitherto made, admit them to be
calculated. You will see, also, that Herschel
was only the first astronomer who discovered it
to be a planet, and not the first who saw it.
Meyer saw it in the year 1756, and placed it in
the catalogue of his zodiacal stars, supposing it
to be such. A Prussian astronomer, in the
year 1781, observed that the 964th star of
Meyer's catalogue was missing; and the calculations
now prove that at the time Meyer
saw his 964th star, the planet Herschel should
have been precisely in the place where he noted
that star.—
To John Page. Washington ed. i, 402.
(P.
1785)
