A long discussion took place on the question of a name for the new planet. Bode’s suggestion of “Uranus” is now in universal use, but it is within the recollection of many persons living that this planet bore sometimes the name of the “Georgium Sidus” and sometimes the name of “Herschel.” The former designation was proposed by Herschel himself in compliment to his sovereign and patron George III. of England; whilst a French astronomer suggested the latter name. However, neither of these appellations was acceptable to the astronomers of the Continent, who declared in favour of a mythological name, though it was a long time before they agreed to accept Bode’s “Uranus.” The symbol commonly used to represent the planet is formed of Herschel’s initial with a little circle added below, though the Germans employ something else, “made in Germany,” to quote a too familiar phrase. The visible disc of Uranus is so small that none but telescopes of the very largest size can make anything of it. A few sentences therefore will dispose of this part of the subject. The disc is usually bluish in tinge, and most observers who look at it consider it uniformly bright, but there is satisfactory testimony to the effect that under the most favourable circumstances of instrument and atmosphere two or more belts, not unlike the belts of Jupiter, may be traced. From the position in which these belts have been seen it is inferred that the satellites of Uranus (presently to be mentioned) are unusually much inclined to the planet’s equator, and revolve in a retrograde direction, contrary to what is the ordinary rule of the planets and satellites. It is assumed as the basis of these ideas, (and by analogy it is reasonable to do this) that the belts are practically parallel to the planet’s equator, and at right angles to the planet’s axis of rotation. To speak of the planet’s axis of rotation is, in one sense, another assumption, because available observations can scarcely be said to enable us to demonstrate that the planet does rotate on its axis, yet we can have no moral doubt about it. Taylor has suggested grounds for the opinion that “there can be very little doubt that Uranus is to a very large extent self-luminous, and that we do not see it wholly by reflected light.” To this Gore adds the idea that there is “strong evidence in favour of the existence of intrinsic heat in the planet.”