WHO DISCOVERED THE PLANET?

[We take the risk of publishing the following letter from a friend who might possibly have been too judicious to write it had he known that it would see the light. It is likely, however, that if any good name has been unjustly enclouded, it will have been cleared by the time this magazine reaches that vicinity, if it ever does; if justly, M. Vernet will have made every peak in Switzerland vocal with it.]

BESANÇON, February 4, 1860.

AFTER a violent oscillation between the beauties of France and the sublimities of Switzerland, as provocative of a rest for the spring and summer, I have selected the meadow rather than the eyrie, and have had a neat and pleasant room fitted up in the Humboldt hotel. From my window I look forth on the placid waters of the Doubs, which reminds me daily of our own beautiful Rappahannock, that sweetest of Virginia streams, which has long flowed in me as one of my own veins.

But I can not linger more amongst the sacred autographs which the Old Times wrote in stone within these ancient walls, ere they departed; for they seem to have said- these Old Times: We will take Besançon, whose fortification dates back to the time of Cæsar, heap our souvenirs in its museum, our books in its library, and make its cathedrals and dwellings a geologic architecture, recording the strata of past civilizations.

I must not close, however, without telling you of a strange tragedy and its attendant rumors, of which perhaps the least that is said the better, until their present nebulous condition shall recede before a nucleus of substantiated fact. It relates to the planet recently discovered by Dr. Lascarbault, to whom the honor of the discovery is not only due, but most cheerfully conceded by all. Henceforth, along with the thrilling stories of Humphrey Davy, the apothecary's apprentice, stealing chances to experiment with his master's broken phials, and with the pots and pans in the kitchen, of the young Faraday, binding books during the day, and experimenting in electricity with nothing better than an old bottle, of Herschel, playing the oboe for the Durham militia, and painfully constructing, what he could not buy, a five-foot reflector, which revealed to his eye the ring and satellites of Saturn, will be told that of the obscure Dr. Lascarbault, saving from his meagre earnings enough to purchase a poor telescope, costing only

-

$150, and noting the most important calculations of the age on a white plank!

You have probably heard that claims to a previous discovery by Scott, the Englishman, and others, have been made. These may be or may not be true-and, indeed, it makes very little difference whether such claims are just or not; they serve, however, to show that the announcement, made in the Cosmos long ago by Leverrier, of the perturbations of Mercury which led him to suspect the existence of a planet revolving between Mercury and the sun, had caused a determination of every telescope in Europe, small and great, to that one spot in the heavens.

Amongst those who patiently, and I believe successfully, watched and waited upon these perturbations, to discover their cause, was the young man of whom I have to write you, Marcel Vercanier. He was the President and leading spirit of the SaintPierre Friends. The story of these Friends must first be told. In 1849 twelve young men were graduated in the scientific schools of Paris, of whom some were Spanish, some Swiss, one German, and six French. These formed a club for the purpose of traveling on foot through the Jura, in order to make discoveries amongst its rich geologic phenomena, and its vegetable and animal fauna. They easily obtained a commission of survey from the government, which served to pay expenses, and plunged forth into a four-years' nomadic life. They took their tents with them; the rivers were their fish-barrels, the forests their meat-houses. They were taken by the grand old Jura to their heart, and in a year or so became shaggy enough to be mistaken by any of the bears which abound there for legitimate members of the feral fraternity. The survey was very fruitful of results, and in the spring of 1853 they found themselves on a mountain of Bern, commanding the entire prospect of the most beautiful Lake Bienne, their expedition fairly closed, their records not yet brought into shape. You have heard, doubtless, of the exquisite Isle de Saint-Pierre, which is the pride of Lake Bienne: its solitary claim to historic fame is, that there, in 1765, Jean Jacques Rousseau came to find rest. Here he lived and wrote. It is now rarely visited save by some devout admirer of the Contrat Social, or the Nouvelle Héloïse. Of the extreme and delicate beauty of this quiet lake, and more quiet island, I can refer you to no delineation save one drawn in Dumas' most fascinating Impressions de Voyage. You must

- of a

dream - the garish day could unfold you no such vision beautiful island of a square mile or so, covered with deep foliage, fringed down toward the lake-edge with stately poplars. Magnificent mountain summits rise up on every side, mingling with gorgeously tinted clouds. At the moment when our party first looked down upon the scene the setting sun had touched the waters of the lake to gold and amethyst, and they looked longingly upon the emerald island which seemed a home for their wayworn spirits. To it they descended; and on the first day which they spent there it was resolved to take the old chateau, the same in which Rousseau had dwelt, and remain there until their reports were ready for transmission to Paris.

But when these reports were ready to leave, the Friends were not. Four years together in the brave life with nature, cast utterly upon each other, provoking the finest qualities of each and all, they could not but find some interweavings of heart and brain. nerves which ached at the idea of separation. And, indeed, so pleasant was their association, so genial the sky, so full of beauty and variety the island and lake, that they lingered on in a scientific phalanstere from year to year, and were known throughout the canton of Bern as the Saint-Pierre Friends.

As I have said, the leading spirit among them was Vercanier. The day before visiting Neufchatel, which is just ten English miles due west from this lake, I spent a day with these Friends, whom I found very hospitable; and I was particularly struck with the native nobility and the exquisite genius of their young President. He had taken Astronomy as his specialty, and had swung a powerful glass in the room which had once been occupied by the celebrated sentimentalist of whom I have spoken. His room bore evidence of the great pride with which his companions took care of their genius and all that related to him. And I remember well the large old Gothic chair, which they had united to purchase for him, and which, alas! -But I must not anticipate.

When Leverrier made his announcement of the perturbations, Marcel was at once seized with an absorbing zeal for discovery, which made him, I am told, neglect his food and sleep. His friend Vernet declares that the astronomer told him, early in January, that he had come to an absolute certainty, so far as his own mind was concerned, that he had the degrees of the planet's inclination to the ecliptic, that he had its period of revolution round

the sun (19 d. 17 h.), but that he was determined not to make any announcement until he could make sure proof, and offer perfect calculations.

At this time one Pilzer, who has been for some years assistant superintendent of the Geneva Observatory, went over to visit the Saint-Pierre Friends in company with Du Sor, whom he joined at Neufchatel. Introduced by such a distinguished and admirable a naturalist, the Genevan was heartily welcomed; and when Du Sor returned the other had accepted an invitation to explore the island, and did not return with him. He remained three days, then left, accompanied by the good wishes of most of the club.

The next morning Marcel Vercanier was found seated in an upright position in the old Gothic chair, stiff, cold, dead! His hand grasped a pen, or rather clutched it, as if under a sharp pang. A white sheet of paper lay before him, with three words on it: “I have discovered”.

The Friends were wild with excitement; Vernet was seized with a fever, and soon raved. No clue to the awful mystery was afforded. Dr. Buch, who lived across the lake, was sent for, and brought with him Dr. Stein, of Besançon, who happened to be at his house. These able men made a post-mortem examination, and unhesitatingly declared that the digestive functions were sound and without foreign substance, and that they had not a doubt that Vercanier had by over-work brought on some singular and sudden affection of the brain.

But, on the second day after the death, as they were preparing the body for burial, one of the students observed on the naked body, just between the shoulders, a singular little appearance, as of the calyx and petals of a pink flower. Attention having been called to it, one of the Friends, who had been trained especially in the department of Toxicology, at Paris, examined it closely; then went to the large arm-chair in which Marcel was in the habit of sitting, and in which he had been found dead, pressed with both hands on the velvet, and forth there started a horrible instrument known in the dens of Paris and London as "the fang." It is a long awl-like point, modeled within on the principle of a serpent's tooth the poison vessel being in a small cylinder at the base, and pressed out by any pressure on the point. Against this horrid thing, concealed under the velvet, the gifted Vercanier had leaned back, and the flower of death had blown upon him.

But now the fang had been found, the serpent was to be sought for. Du Sor had introduced Pilzer; so it seemed about as natural to suspect one as the other. But one morning, about a week after the burial of Marcel Vercanier, Vernet read in the Geneva Presse the following paragraph:

66

WHO DISCOVERED THE PLANET? We are authorized to state that, in a few days, M. Pilzer will exhibit to the public evidence that he had, previously to Dr. Lascarbault, discovered and made perfect calculations of the new planet, its bearings and relations; and that, if it had not been for the telegraph which flashed the news from Paris preceding his announcement by a few hours, his calculations, successfully carried on during nearly a year past, would have been laid before the Genevan public. Should this prove true, it will give to the assistant superintendent of our Observatory an enviable position in the world of astronomic science, although the honor of the discovery and naming of the new planet may not be technically conceded to him."

As he read this, a dark suspicion started up in Vernet's mind. He rushed up to his dead friend's study, broke open his desk, examined every paper in the drawer, escritoir, room. The calculations to which he knew Vercanier's last year and last moment had been devoted could nowhere be found. He saw, by a terrible vision, that these papers had been laid out on the table, that their summing up had begun in the words "I have discovered." He saw the eager, envious hand which had paralyzed the noble Marcel, and harvested for his ambition the magnificent results!

On the wings of the wind the Friends sped to Geneva; but they were too furious to be cautious: they went in a body to the Observatory. Of course, when they entered, Pilzer could not be found; for it is likely that his telescope had lately watched the gates of the Observatory Park more than the revolutions of the new planet. Every one had seen M. Pilzer a moment before, but no one could find him now.

M. Pilzer's claims as discoverer of the new planet have not been verified to the Genevan public through the Presse: M. Pilzer himself is not so discoverable as the planet.

Nothing further of the horrid affair has transpired, so far as I know, except that the Saint-Pierre Friends have banded themselves into a posse of detectives, and are likely to reexplore the Jura for a brute hitherto unknown to its fauna.

D.