William Herschel proposed the name of _Georgium Sidus_ “the Star of George,” just as Galileo had given the name of “Medicean stars” to the satellites of Jupiter discovered by him, and as Horace had said _Julium Sidus_. Others proposed the name of _Neptune_, in order to maintain the mythological character, and to give to the new body the trident of the English maritime power; others, _Uranus_, the most ancient deity of all, and the father of Saturn, to whom reparation was due for so many centuries of neglect. Lalande proposed the name of _Herschel_, to immortalize the name of its discoverer. These last two denominations prevailed. For a long time the planet bore the name of Herschel; but custom has since declared for the mythological appellation, and Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus succeed each other in order of descent--son, father, and grandfather. The discovery of Uranus extended the radius of the Solar System from 885,000,000 to 1,765,000,000 of miles. The apparent brightness of this planet is that of a star of the sixth magnitude; observers whose sight is very piercing may succeed in recognizing it with the naked eye when they know where to look for it. Uranus moves slowly from west to east, and takes no less than eighty-four years to make the complete circuit of the sky. In its annual motion round the sun the earth passes between the sun and Uranus every 369 days--that is to say, once in a year and four days. It is at these times that this planet crosses the meridian at midnight. We can observe it in the evening sky for about six months of every year. Everybody supposed that now, at least, the outermost member of all was discovered. But a very strange and remarkable thing happened. Astronomers know with great exactness the paths of the planets in the heavens. They can tell, years beforehand, precisely what spot in space will be filled at any particular time by any particular planet. I am speaking now of their movements round the sun and in the Solar System--not of the movements of the whole family with the sun, about which little is yet known. Each planet has its own particular pathway; its own particular distance from the sun, varying at each part of its pathway; its own particular speed in traveling round the sun, changing constantly from faster to slower or slower to faster, according to its distance from the sun, and according to the pull backwards or forwards of our neighboring planets in front or in rear. For as the orbits of all the planets are ovals, with the sun not in the middle, but somewhat to one side of the middle, it follows that all the planets, in the course of their years, are sometimes nearer to and sometimes farther from the sun.