Io in Egypt, and other Poems. By Richard Garnett. Blanche Lisle, and other Poems. By Cecil Home. Periodicité des Grands Hivers. Par M. E. Renou. Sur les Rapports entre les Phenomenes Meteorologiques et la Rotation Solaire. Par M. Buys-Ballot. 3. Herzog's Real-Encyclopedie. 4. Werner's Geschichte d. Thomismus. 7. Figuier's Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes. Pressell's Uber das Leben d. Ulphilas. CONTENTS OF No. LXVI. Page ART. I.-MODERN THOUGHT-ITS PROGRESS AND CON- 1. Thoughts in aid of Faith, gathered chiefly from Recent Works in Theology and Philosophy. Manwaring 1859. 2. Prize Essay.-Christianity and Infidelity: an Exposi- tion of the Arguments on both sides. 3. Essay on the Sceptical Tendency of "Butler's Analogy." ART. II. THE DISTURBANCES IN SYRIA, I. Despatches from Her Majesty's Consuls in the Levant, respecting Past or Apprehended Disturbances in Syria, 1858 to 1860. Presented to the House of Lords by command of Her Majesty, 1860. (And other Works.) 5. The Town. By Leigh Hunt. London, 1858. 6. A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla. By Leigh Hunt. 7. Imagination and Fancy; or, Selections from the English 1. A Voyage to the South Sea, and along the Coasts of Chile and Peru, in the years 1712, 1713, and 1714. By Monsieur Frezier. London, 1717. 2. El Mercurio Peruano. Lima, 1798. 3. The Edinburgh Review. Vol. XIII. January, 1809. 4. The United States Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere, during 1849, 1850, 1851, 5. Biography of General Miller. London, 1826. 1. Lectures on Logic. By Sir William Hamilton, Bart. Edited by the Rev. H. L. Mansel, B.D., LL.D., Oxford and John Veitch, M.A., St Andrews. 2. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive; being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John Stuart Mill. Fourth Edition. 2 Vols. London, 1859. 3. Elements of Logic. By Richard Whately, D.D., Arch- bishop of Dublin. London, 1851. 4. Prolegomena Logica: an Inquiry into the Psychological Character of Logical Processes. By the Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., LL.D. Second Edition. 1. The Biglow Papers. By James Russell Lowell. Lon- 2. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By Oliver Wen- 3. The Professor at the Breakfast Table. By Oliver Wen- 4. Mosses from an Old Manse. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. 5. Poems. By R. W. Emerson. Boston, 1847. 6. Dred. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. London, 1856. (And 1. Nettleton and his Labours. By Bennet Tyler, D.D. Remodelled by Rev. A. A. Bonar. 2d Edition. 2. Historical Collections relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel. By Rev. John Gillies. 3. Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in Northampton. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M., 1839. 4. Revivals of Religion in the British Isles. Edinburgh, ART. IX. THE MARTYRDOM OF GALILEO, 3. Galileo e Inquisizione, de M. Marino Marini. (And other Works.) THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. AUGUST, 1860. ART. I.-1. Lettre de M. LEVERRIER à M. FAYE sur la Theorie de Mercure, et sur le Mouvement du perihelie de cette Planete. Comptes Rendus, etc., Sept. 12, 1859, vol. xlix., p. 379-383. 2. Remarques de M. FAYE à l'occasion de la Lettre de M. LEVERRIER. Id. Id., p. 383–386. 3. Passage d'une Planete sur le disque du Soleil, observée à Orgeres, par M. LESCARBAULT. Lettre à M. LEVERRIER, Id. Id., Jan. 2, 1860, or Cosmos, Jan. 13, 1860, vol. xvi., p. 50. 4. Note sur la Planete intra-Mercurielle. Prof. dans l'Université de Königsberg. 1860, vol. xvi., p. 147. Par M. RADEAU, 5. Sur quelques Periodes qui semblent se rapporter, à les Passages de la Planete Lescarbault sur le Soleil. Par M. ROD. WOLFF. Comptes Rendus, Mars 15, 1860, Tom. 1., p. 482. 6. Decouverte d'une Nouvelle Planete entre Mercure et le Soleil. Par M. L'ABBE MOIGNO. COSMOS, Jan. 6, 1860, vol. xvi., p. 22. 7. Future Observations of the supposed New Planet. By M. R. RADEAU. Monthly Notices of the Astron. Soc., March 7, 1860, vol. xx., p. 195. 8. Sur la Nouvelle Planete annoncée par M. Lescarbault. Par M. EMM. LIAIS. Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 1248, p. 373, April 14, 1860. 9. Reponse à M. Liais. Par M. RADEAU. COSMOS, vol. xvi., p. 473, May 4, 1860. 10. On some previous Observations of supposed Planetary Bodies in transit over the Sun. By R. C. CARRINGTON, Esq. Monthly Notices Astron. Soc., vol. xx., p. 192. IN our articles on the Revelations of Astronomy, and on the Discovery of the Planet Neptune, we submitted to our readers 1 N. Brit. Rev., vol. vi., p. 206-256. 2 Id. Id., vol. vii., p. 207-247. VOL. XXXIII. NO. LXV. A a popular account of the bodies of the solar and sidereal systems, and of the comets, or wandering stars, which occasionally cross them in their path. Since that time important discoveries have been made in the science, by the use of fine telescopes, and improved methods of observation; and speculation, which has hitherto performed but a small part in accelerating the march of astronomy, has begun to assert its just influence, not only in predicting the existence of new planets, but in exploring the inner life of the planetary system. Within a few years, new satellites have been found circulating round some of the remoter planets, while the structure and condition of the planets themselves have been studied with the improved telescopes now in the hands of astronomers. No fewer than fifty-eight new planets, or asteroids, as they have been called from their smallness, have been discovered between Mars and Jupiter; and, what is more interesting still, M. Leverrier, one of the discoverers of Neptune, had, from theoretical considerations, suggested by irregularities in the motions of Mercury, predicted the existence of a planet, or a ring of planets, between that body and the Sun; and M. Lescarbault has actually discovered this intra-mercurial planet, while it was passing in the form of a round black spot over the disc of the Sun. The history of this discovery, if it is a discovery, is one of the most curious chapters in the annals of science. It has been characterized as 66 the Romance of the New Planet ;" and astronomers of no mean celebrity are now marshalled in hostile array in discussing the question of its existence. On the 2d January 1860, M. Leverrier communicated to the Academy of Sciences a remarkable paper on the Theory of Mercury. In studying the 21 transits of that body over the Sun between 1697 and 1848, he found that the observations could not be represented by the received elements of the planet, but that they could be all represented, nearly to a second, by augmenting by 38 seconds the secular motion of the perihelion of Mercury. In order to justify such an increase, we must increase the mass attributed to Venus one-tenth at least of its value, which, from sixty years' meridian observations, has been found to be the four hundred thousandth part of that of the Sun. If we admit this increased mass of Venus, we must conclude, either that the secular variation of the obliquity of the Ecliptic, deduced from observations, is affected with errors by no means probable, or that the obliquity is changed by other causes wholly unknown to us. If, on the other hand, we regard the variation of the obliquity of the Ecliptic, and the causes which produce it, as well established, we must believe that the excess of motion in the perihelion of Mercury is due to some unknown action. |