A REPLY

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MR. BABBAGE'S LETTER IN "THE TIMES."

IN The Times newspaper of March 15, a letter from Mr. Babbage was inserted, with the heading, On the Planet Neptune and the Royal Astronomical Society's Medal. Some remarks on this letter were made by the Astronomer Royal, and by the Editor, in the Athenæum of March 20. Before meddling in the matter, I thought it right to give Mr. Babbage time for a rejoinder. But as nothing has appeared from him, and as the Council allowed the last meeting to pass over without paying any attention to Mr. Babbage's complaint, I venture to assume the task of confuting Mr. Babbage's letter, paragraph by paragraph. A few words of introduction will save some trouble to my readers.

On the 13th of November last, the Astronomer Royal read before our Society a historical notice of such facts concerning the new planet as had come particularly to his knowledge. This memoir was printed in our Monthly Notices for November, and has since been reprinted by Professor Schumacher, in the Astronomische Nachrichten. At pages 129, 130, is a letter from Mr. Adams, stating the mass and elements of an unknown and exterior planet, which, according to his calculations, would account for the observed irregularities of Uranus; and also a table of the remaining errors of Uranus, after the corrections due to the exterior planet had been applied. Mr. Adams' letter was received by the Astronomer Royal in the last days of October, and was answered by him a few days after, on November 5, 1845. These results were also communicated to Professor Challis (pp. 129 and 145). It is admitted that the orbit was defined, and the place of the planet predicted by Mr. Adams, with sufficient correctness in this letter; and, so far as I have heard, no one has called in question the accuracy of any part of the statement made by the Astronomer Royal. If Bremiker's map had been in existence, and employed in searching for the planet at the time of Mr.

* I am reminded of a silly article in the Mechanics' Magazine, but I presume this to have been a hoax on the editor, and not a deliberate calumny, without a particle of proof or probability to support it.

Adams' letter, the planet would have been found almost, if not altogether, as easily in November 1845, on Mr. Adams' prediction, as it was found, owing to that map, by Dr. Galle, in September 1846, on M. Le Verrier's predicton.

Mr. Adams did not communicate his investigation till November 13, 1846, when he placed it in my hands as Secretary of the Society. It has since been printed and profusely distributed, thanks to the activity of Lieutenant Stratford, and the liberality of the Lords of the Admiralty. As the numerical results of the first portion of this investigation are identical with those of the letter of October 1845, the first part of Mr. Adams' investigation must also be prior to that date, as he himself affirms.

The second part of the investigation would seem, and for the same reasons, to be anterior to Mr. Adams' letter of September 2, 1846 (pp. 137, 8, 9), dated two days later than M. Le Verrier's second paper on the same subject, which was presented to the French Academy on August 31, but not printed till some time later.

If the proof that Mr. Adams had detected the existence and place of a planet exterior to Uranus, as early as October 1845, be considered sufficient, and if the discovery of the new planet be understood to be the detection of its place, mass, and orbit, by solving the inverse problem of perturbation, and finding the planet by its effects on Uranus, then I think it would be difficult to deny Mr. Adams the title of first discoverer.

At the meeting of Council on December 11, the names of all the gentlemen to whom the medal might by possibility be awarded, were proposed and seconded, in accordance with the bye-laws; M. Le Verrier and Mr. Adams being both proposed, and both by the Astronomer Royal.

On January 8, the day prescribed by the bye-laws, the Council met at an early hour to award the medal, and before any formal motion was made in favour of any candidate, one of the members read a statement of some length, analysing, as well as he was able, the claims of Mr. Adams, and concluding by a suggestion that the usual medal should be given to M. Le Verrier, and that the Council should apply to the General Meeting next month for power to grant another medal to Mr. Adams. This suggestion was not favourably received by a majority of the members, and to bring the matter to an issue, a motion was made and carried that no application should be made to the General Meeting hence only one medal could be given. On this the Astronomer Royal, who had before expressed his opinion strongly on the necessity of giving two medals, declared that he would vote against one medal,

whoever the candidate might be, as he thought it would mark a greater difference than was just: the result of the ballot was that a majority of three to one, which is required by the bye-law, was not obtained for M. Le Verrier or for any candidate.*

So far as I understood the disposition of the members of the Council, it was this. All, or almost all, were anxious to give a medal to M. Le Verrier. A large minority was anxious to give a medal to Mr. Adams also. The majority considered a medal to Mr. Adams an injustice to M. Le Verrier, while a minority of one-third considered a single medal to M. Le Verrier an injustice to Mr. Adams. And I firmly believe that every member gave his vote to the best of his understanding, the only obligation by which members of Council are bound.

At the Annual General Meeting on February 12, Mr. Babbage, after a short speech, first proposed, if I remember, something or other, which he withdrew on being told that it would be met as a vote of censure. He then proposed the following motion:

"That this meeting express their deep regret that the Council have not awarded the Society's medal to M. Le Verrier, for his publication of the greatest astronomical discovery of modern times;"

which was negatived by a very large majority.

There are, I think, these objections to Mr. Babbage's motion, on the very face of it: that it pointed out no remedy, and that the merit to be rewarded is said to be the publication of the discovery, and not the discovery itself. A publisher is sometimes not the author of the thing published, and this may happen by fraud or by consent. Though I do not, for instance, dispute Mr. Babbage's invention of a calculating machine, of some sort other, and to some extent, the publication of the invention, so far as it has been published, has, for the most part, been anonymous or extraneous, and, therefore, the merit, according to the wording of Mr. Babbage's motion, not his.

or

What is the proper conclusion to be come to in the following cases?

In Mr. Babbage's work On the Decline of Science, the remarks on practical astronomy and instruments (I mean all those which are not obvious or erroneous), we know to

* There is great impropriety in publishing private and confidential conversations, but so much was told in the Annual Report, and so much was said at the General Meeting, that I see no use in any reserve, especially as the spirit of the Council discussion has been mistaken and misrepresented.

be contributions. Are they Mr. Babbage's own, because he published them? It is notorious that all the descriptions of instruments, most of the calculations, and the few sound philosophical remarks contained in Sir James South's memoirs, are borrowed, though not acknowledged lights. Did he, by publication, make them his? If Mr. Babbage says Yes, then let the daw be set down for a genuine peacock, since there is no doubt he published himself in peacock's attire.

I must request the Fellows to correct a press error in Lieut. Raper's amendment. The words, "and awarding a medal to M. Le Verrier," must be inserted after Section 16 of the "bye-laws."

66

Mr. Babbage's Letter to "The Times" of March 15.

ON THE PLANET NEPTUNE AND THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY'S MEDAL.

"Mr. Babbage presents his compliments to the Editor of The Times, and hopes that the great interest taken by the public in the history of the new planet will admit of the Editor's giving publicity to the accompanying letter, which, although placed on Friday last in the hands of the Chairman of the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Astronomical Society, for the express purpose, was not read at the meeting."

The Chairman may explain why he did not read Mr. Babbage's letter to the meeting. I shall content myself with shewing that it ought not to have been read, and could not have been read in regular course. The relation of the letter and its contents to the "History of the New Planet,” I leave to the writer of the letter. Mr. Babbage should have designated the "meeting of Friday last" by its peculiar title, viz. Special General Meeting. The word special has a more definite meaning than extraordinary, and is the word used in the bye-laws.

"A few words will explain the previous circumstances. It is in the power of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society, to confer one medal annually upon the most important astronomical discovery of the year. But to prevent the award of medals to unimportant discoveries, a bye-law requires that there shall be a majority of votes of three to one in order to confer a medal."

There is a whole section in our bye-laws by which the medal is created, and the mode of proceeding directed. Mr. Babbage's language implies that there is only one bye-law, and that its object is merely to fix the necessary majority.

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There is no restriction as to time. The medal may conferred, so far as I know, several years after the appear

ance of the work for which it is awarded. Neither is it limited to discoveries, in any intelligible or usual sense of the word. Any work of sufficient astronomical merit is considered to bring the author within the law.

Mr. Babbage has stated, as the sole motive for establishing a majority of three to one, that which is not hinted at in the laws themselves, and which certainly is only one reason among many and stronger reasons. The lawgivers thought a majority of three to one, on the whole, the best, and that is all we know about the matter. Try Mr. Babbage's mode of reasoning in one of our best known institutions, the trial by jury. The law requires unanimity. If Mr. Babbage were one of four jurymen, who felt clear on one side, would he recommend his friends to yield their opinion up to the eight others on no better ground than that the case was important," and that "their privilege was conferred upon them by society," only to be exercised when "unimportant matter came before them?

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"At the Annual General Meeting of the Astronomical Society on the 12th of Febuary last, the Report of the Council was presented to the Society. Although in other respects highly interesting, it announced the fact that they had not awarded the medal to M. Le Verrier, and assigned reasons for the omission entirely unsatisfactory to many of the members present. At the subsequent discussion and adjourned discussion, which occupied that and the following day, it was admitted that the proposition made in the Council for giving the Society's medal to M. Le Verrier was supported by ten votes, while the Astronomer Royal with four other votes opposed it. Having therefore only a majority of two to one in its favour, the proposition was negatived."

The Report of the Council, with the statement I have already made, will put the case before the Fellows more fully than Mr. Babbage has done. The Council could not award a medal because there was not a legal majority for any candidate. The reasons assigned in the Report are principally reasons for not suspending the existing bye-laws, which certainly do not appear to me of any weight. As the medal rests with the Council alone, the propriety of interfering with their decision may be doubted. The Society can alter its bye-laws, and choose its council, but there is a manifest inconsistency in keeping the bye-laws and re-electing the same members of Council, while disabling their judgment in a matter which is declared to be within their peculiar province. In awarding a medal the Council sit as judges, and ought not, and do not regard any suggestion whatever but that of their own consciences.

In the discussion which took place at the General Meeting, the Astronomer Royal and some other members of the