On the other hand, it is to be noted that other observers failed to see any of these bodies, though they looked specially for intra-Mercurial planets. Thus Professor Hall, of the Washington Observatory, searched over a larger space than is included in fig. 4, without seeing any unknown body. But as he also failed to see many known bodies which should have been seen, it is probable that the search was too hurried to be trustworthy. It would be satisfactory to be able to say that any of the supposed planets might have been Lescarbault's Vulcan. But in reality, I fear, this cannot have been the case. In the _Times_, I expressed, in an article dated August 14, 1878, the opinion that the evidence obtained establishes the existence of the planet which had so long been regarded as a myth. That opinion was based on a very careful investigation of the evidence available at the time. But it does not accord with what has since been learned respecting Watson's observations. We may dismiss planet 3 at once. If Watson is right about this body being distinct from Zeta (a point about which, I must confess, I feel grave doubts), then this must be a planet travelling in an orbit much wider than we can possibly assign to Vulcan. For even at the distance of some seven degrees from the sun it showed no sign of gibbosity. If it had then been at its greatest elongation it would have appeared only half-full. But with the power Watson was using, which enabled him to pronounce that the smaller body near Theta showed no elongation, he would at once have noticed any such peculiarity of shape. He could not have failed to observe any gibbosity approaching to that of the moon when three-quarters full. Moreover on July 29 a planet which has its points of crossing the ecliptic opposite the earth's place on April 3 and October 6, could not appear where Watson saw this body (fully two degrees from the ecliptic) unless either its orbit were far wider than that which Leverrier assigned to Vulcan, or else its inclination far greater. Neither supposition can be reconciled with Lescarbault's observation.