As a result of this work, on January 1, 1801, the first planetoid was discovered, and in rapid succession many like it were found, until now many hundreds are known to astronomers. Their discovery seemed at first almost a certain confirmation of Bode’s law, and the fact that where one large planet should have been found there proved to be such a swarm of small ones could be accounted for in no other way than to suppose that something had happened in the making of the planet. At any rate, the promulgation of Bode’s law was the direct cause of the search for the missing planet which led to the discovery of the planetoids. And this is the only reason why Bode’s law has continued to be mentioned in the history of the planets. For it was no real law, it had no scientific foundation, and its conformity to the facts of the relative distances of the planets was only one of those very interesting and singular coincidences that startle one for the moment into thinking that there is some scientific significance in them. Another example of such a coincidence is in the fact that the mass of any given planet exceeds the total mass of all the planets of any less mass than itself. In less than half a century after the discovery of the first planetoid, Neptune was discovered at a distance not at all corresponding to that indicated by Bode’s law. It was not nearly far enough away, and yet, strangely enough, it was by taking Bode’s law into consideration that the position was indicated which finally led to the discovery of the planet. So while Bode’s law has been found to be no law at all, it is, nevertheless, entitled to some mention because of its having thus stimulated research that has had such important results. No really satisfactory and final explanation of the present state of the planetoids has ever been given. At one time it was suggested that another planet had originally existed in the space between Mars and Jupiter, and through some catastrophe had been shattered into the small bodies that now occupy that space. But this has been shown to be impossible.