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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
239
Dr.
Lescarbault
wrote
to
Leverrier,
who
hastened
to
Orgeres--
Because
this
announcement
assimilated
with
his
own
calculations
upon
a
planet
between
Mercury
and
the
sun--
Because
this
solar
system
itself
has
never
attained
positiveness
in
the
aspect
of
Regularity:
there
are
to
Mercury,
as
there
are
to
Neptune,
phenomena
irreconcilable
with
the
formulas,
or
motions
that
betray
influence
by
something
else.
We
are
told
that
Leverrier
"satisfied
himself
as
to
the
substantial
accuracy
of
the
reported
observation."
The
story
of
this
investigation
is
told
in
Monthly
Notices,
20-98.
It
seems
too
bad
to
threaten
the
naive
little
thing
with
our
rude
sophistications,
but
it
is
amusingly
of
the
ingenuousness
of
the
age
from
which
present
dogmas
have
survived.
Lescarbault
wrote
to
Leverrier.
Leverrier
hastened
to
Orgeres.
But
he
was
careful
not
to
tell
Lescarbault
who
he
was.
Went
right
in
and
"subjected
Dr.
Lescarbault
to
a
very
severe
cross-examination"--just
the
way
you
or
I
may
feel
at
liberty
to
go
into
anybody's
home
and
be
severe
with
people--"pressing
him
hard
step
by
step"--just
as
anyone
might
go
into
someone
else's
house
and
press
him
hard,
though
unknown
to
the
hard-pressed
one.
Not
until
he
was
satisfied,
did
Leverrier
reveal
his
identity.
I
suppose
Dr.
Lescarbault
expressed
astonishment.
I
think
there's
something
utopian
about
this:
it's
so
unlike
the
stand-offishness
of
New
York
life.
Leverrier
gave
the
name
"Vulcan"
to
the
object
that
Dr.
Lescarbault
had
reported.
By
the
same
means
by
which
he
is,
even
to
this
day,
supposed--by
the
faithful--to
have
discovered
Neptune,
he
had
already
announced
the
probable
existence
of
an
Intra-Mercurial
body,
or
group
of
bodies.
He
had
five
observations
besides
Lescarbault's
upon
something
that
had
been
seen
to
cross
the
sun.
In
accordance
with
the
mathematical
hypnoses
of
his
era,
he
studied
these
six
transits.
Out
of
them
he
computed
elements
giving
"Vulcan"
a
period
of
about
20
days,
or
a
formula
for
heliocentric
longitude
at
any
time.
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