ther
celestial luminaries in diameter. He replaced the magnification of his
telescope by more powerful eye-pieces, and found that the apparent
diameter of the orb increased proportionately with the amplification of
the power, which does not happen in the case of stars at infinite
distance. His observations on the following evenings enabled him to note
the slow and imperceptible movement of this star upon the celestial
sphere, and left him in no further doubt: there was no star, but some
much nearer orb, in all probability a comet, for the great astronomer
dared not predict the discovery of a new planet. And it was thus, under
the name of cometary orb, that the seventh child of the Sun was
announced. The astronomers sought to determine the motions of the new
arrival, to discover for it an elliptical orbit such as most comets
have. But their efforts were vain, and after several months' study the
conclusion was reached that here was a new planet, throwing back the
limits of the solar system to a point far beyond that of the Saturnian
frontier, as admitted from antiquity.

This new world received the name of Uranus, father of Saturn, his
nearest neighbor in the solar empire. Uranus shines in the firmament as
a small star of sixth magnitude, invisible to the unaided eye for
normal sight, at a distance of 2,831,000,000 kilometers (1,755,000,000
miles) from the Sun. Smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, this planet is yet
larger than Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Earth together, thus
presenting proportions that claim our respect and admiration.

His diameter may be taken at about 55,000 kilometers (34,200 miles),
that is, rather more than four times the breadth of the terrestrial
diameter. Sixty-nine times more voluminous than the Earth, and seventeen
times more extensive in surface, this new world is much less than our
own in density. The matter of which it is composed is nearly five times
lighter than that of our globe.

Spectral analysis shows that this distant planet is surrounded with an
atmosphere very different from that which we breathe, enclosing gases
that do not exist in ours.

The Uranian globe courses over the fields of infinity in a vast orbit
seventeen times larger than our own, and its revolution lasts 36,688
days, _i.e._, 84 years, 8 days. It travels slowly and sadly under the
pale and languishing rays of the Sun, which sends it nearly three
hundred times less of light and heat than we receive. At this distance