ave become discernible. It was in this extremity
that the celebrated mathematician Gauss came to the rescue. He was then
in his twenty-fifth year, and was earning his bread by tuition at
Brunswick, with many possibilities, but no settled career before him.
The news from Palermo may be said to have converted him from an
arithmetician into an astronomer. He was already in possession of a new
and more general method of computing elliptical orbits; and the system
of "least squares," which he had devised though not published, enabled
him to extract the most probable result from a given set of
observations. Armed with these novel powers, he set to work; and the
communication in November of his elements and ephemeris for the lost
object revived the drooping hopes of the little band of eager searchers.
Their patience, however, was to be still further tried. Clouds, mist,
and sleet seemed to have conspired to cover the retreat of the fugitive;
but on the last night of the year the sky cleared unexpectedly with the
setting in of a hard frost, and there, in the north-western part of
Virgo, nearly in the position assigned by Gauss to the runaway planet, a
strange star was discerned by Von Zach[205] at Gotha, and on a
subsequent evening--the anniversary of the original discovery--by Olbers
at Bremen. The name of Ceres (as the tutelary goddess of Sicily) was, by
Piazzi's request, bestowed upon this first known of the numerous, and
probably all but innumerable family of the minor planets.

The recognition of the second followed as the immediate consequence of
the detection of the first. Olbers had made himself so familiar with the
positions of the small stars along the track of the long-missing body,
that he was at once struck (March 28, 1802) with the presence of an
intruder near the spot where he had recently identified Ceres. He at
first believed the new-comer to be a variable star usually
inconspicuous, but just then at its maximum of brightness; but within
two hours he had convinced himself that it was no _fixed_ star, but a
rapidly moving object. The aid of Gauss was again invoked, and his
prompt calculations showed that this fresh celestial acquaintance (named
"Pallas" by Olbers), revolved round the sun at nearly the same mean
distance as Ceres, and was beyond question of a strictly analogous
character.

This result was perplexing in the extreme. The symmetry and simplicity
of the planetary scheme appeared fatally compromised