would have been more correct to say 'swinging seconds.' Leverrier then examined the doctor's telescope, and presently asked for the record of the observations. Lescarbault produced it, written on a piece of laudanum-stained paper which at the moment was doing service as a marker in the _Connaissance des Temps_. Leverrier asked Lescarbault what distance he had deduced for the new planet. The doctor replied that he had been unable to deduce any, not being a mathematician: he had made many attempts, however.[5] Hearing this, Leverrier asked for the rough draft of these ineffective calculations. 'My rough draft?' said the doctor. 'Paper is rather scarce with us here. I am a joiner as well as an astronomer' (we can imagine the expression of Leverrier's face at this moment); 'I calculate in my workshop, and I write upon the boards; and when I wish to use them in new calculations, I remove the old ones by planing.' On adjourning to the carpenter's shop, however, they found the board with its lines and its numbers in chalk still unobliterated. This last piece of evidence, though convincing Leverrier that Lescarbault was no mathematician, and therefore probably in his eyes no astronomer, yet satisfied him as to the good faith of the doctor of Orgères. With a grace and dignity full of kindness, which must have afforded a singular contrast to his previous manner, he congratulated Lescarbault on his important discovery. He made some inquiry also at Orgères, concerning the private character of Lescarbault, and learning from the village _curé_, the _juge de paix_, and other functionaries, that he was a skilful physician, he determined to secure some reward for his labours. At Leverrier's request M. Rouland, the Minister of Public Instruction, communicated to Napoleon III. the result of Leverrier's visit, and on January 25 the Emperor bestowed on the village doctor the decoration of the Legion of Honour. To return to astronomical facts. It appears from Lescarbault's observation, that on March 26, 1859, at about four in the afternoon, a round black spot entered on the sun's disc. It had a diameter less than one-fourth that of Mercury (which he had seen in transit with the same telescope and the same magnifying power on May 8, 1845). The time occupied in the transit of this spot was about one hour seventeen minutes, and, the chord of transit being somewhat more than a quarter of the sun's diameter in length, Lescarbault calculated that the time necessary to describe the sun's diameter would have been nearly four and a half hours. The inclination of the body's path to the ecliptic seemed to be rather more than 6 degrees, and was probably comprised between 5-1/3 and 7-1/3 degrees.