the last of the group,
was discovered by the Elder Herschel, on the night of the thirteenth
of March, 1781. True, this planet had been seen on twenty different
occasions, by other observers; but its character had not been
revealed. Sir William called his new world Georgium Sidus, that is,
the George Star, in honor of the King of England. The world, however,
had too much intelligence to allow the transfer of the name of George
III. from earth to heaven. Such nomenclature would have been unpopular
in America! The name of the king was happily destined to remain a part
of terrestrial history!

For a while it was insisted by astronomers and the world at large that
the new globe, then supposed to bound the solar system on its outer
circumference, should be called Herschel, in honor of its discoverer.
But the old system of naming the planets after the deities of
classical and pagan mythology prevailed; and to the names of Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, was now added the name Uranus, that is,
in the language of the Greeks, _Heaven_.

Piazzi, scanning the zodiac from his observatory in Palermo, in the
early hours of that first night of the century, noticed a hitherto
unobserved star, which under higher power proved to be a planet. It
presented a small irregular disc, and a few additional observations
showed that it was progressing in the usual manner from west to east.
For some time such a revelation had been expected; but the result did
not answer to expectation in one particular; for the new body seemed
to be too insignificant to be called a world. It appeared rather to be
a great planetary boulder, as if our Mount Shasta had been wrenched
from the earth and flung into space. Investigation showed that the new
body was more than a hundred miles in diameter; but this, according to
planetary estimation, is only the measurement of a clod.

There had been, as we say, expectation of a discovery in the region
where the first asteroid was found. Kepler had declared his belief
that in this region of space a new world might be discovered.
Following this suggestion, the German astronomer Olbers, of Bremen,
had formed an association of twenty-four observers in different parts
of Europe, who should divide among themselves the zodiacal band, and
begin a system of independent scrutiny, either to verify or disprove
Kepler's hypothesis.

There was another reason also of no small influence tending to the
same end. Johann Elert Bode