We know now that had the Astronomer-Royal put sufficient faith in this result to point his big telescope to the spot indicated and commence sweeping for a planet, he would have detected it within 1-3/4° of the place assigned to it by Mr. Adams. But any one in the position of the Astronomer-Royal knows that almost every post brings an absurd letter from some ambitious correspondent or other, some of them having just discovered perpetual motion, or squared the circle, or proved the earth flat, or discovered the constitution of the moon, or of ether, or of electricity; and out of this mass of rubbish it requires great skill and patience to detect such gems of value as there may be. Now this letter of Mr. Adams's was indeed a jewel of the first water, and no doubt bore on its face a very different appearance from the chaff of which I have spoken; but still Mr. Adams was an unknown man: he had graduated as Senior Wrangler it is true, but somebody must graduate as Senior Wrangler every year, and every year by no means produces a first-rate mathematician. Those behind the scenes, as Professor Airy of course was, having been a Senior Wrangler himself, knew perfectly well that the labelling of a young man on taking his degree is much more worthless as a testimony to his genius and ability than the general public are apt to suppose. Was it likely that a young and unknown man should have successfully solved so extremely difficult a problem? It was altogether unlikely. Still, he would test him: he would ask for further explanations concerning some of the perturbations which he himself had specially noticed, and see if Mr. Adams could explain these also by his hypothesis. If he could, there might be something in his theory. If he failed--well, there was an end of it. The questions were not difficult. They concerned the error of the radius vector. Mr. Adams could have answered them with perfect ease; but sad to say, though a brilliant mathematician, he was not a man of business. He did not answer Professor Airy's letter. It may to many seem a pity that the Greenwich Equatoreal was not pointed to the place, just to see whether any foreign object did happen to be in that neighbourhood; but it is no light matter to derange the work of an Observatory, and alter the work mapped out for the staff into a sudden sweep for a new planet, on the strength of a mathematical investigation just received by post. If observatories were conducted on these unsystematic and spasmodic principles, they would not be the calm, accurate, satisfactory places they are. Of course, if any one could have known that a new planet was to be had for the looking, _any_ course would have been justified; but no one could know this. I do not suppose that Mr. Adams himself could feel all that confidence in his attempted prediction. So there the matter dropped. Mr. Adams's communication was pigeon-holed, and remained in seclusion for eight or nine months.