American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United StatesDavies, Ebenezer
History
American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States
Davies, Ebenezer
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Description and travel
"I refer to this fact for two reasons,--first, to verify Leverrier;
and, second, to impress upon your minds the desirableness of locating
our observatories in different parts of the earth. No European
astronomer could have made this observation, because in their
longitudes the sun would have set previous to the contact of the planet
with its disk. I had the gratification of furnishing these observations
to Leverrier himself, who reported upon them to the Academy of
Sciences. The triumph of Leverrier was complete. It was after this that
Arago, seeing the characteristics of his mind, said to him, 'Take up
the movements of the planet Herschel,--watch them, analyze them, and
tell us what it is that causes them.' Leverrier throws aside all other
employments, and gives his mind to the investigation of this subject.
He begins entirely back. He takes up the movements of the planets
Jupiter and Saturn, and investigates them anew: he leaves nothing
untouched. Finally, after having in the most absolute manner computed
all the influence they exercise upon the planet Herschel, he says, 'I
now know positively all existing causes that disturb the planet; but
there is an outstanding power that disturbs it not yet accounted for,
and now let me rise to a knowledge of that outstanding cause.' He did
what no other man ever had attempted. He cleared up all
difficulties;--he made all daylight before his gaze. And now, how shall
I give to you an account of the train of reasoning by which he reached
out into unknown space, and evoked from its bosom a mighty world? If
you will give me the time, I will attempt to give you an idea of his
mighty workings in the field of science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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