mortals are in vain. It was attempted to give the name of Leverrier to the planet Neptune; but the scientific world would not recognise the designation. Galileo, as a compliment to the family of the Medici, named the satellites of Jupiter after them, but the name is now obsolete. Uranus, for a time, bore the name of the discoverer, and then of his royal patron, but it is now never known by the planet of Herschel, or the Georgium Sidus. How differently are cometary honours meted out, when the new comet will, in future, be known as that of the Baron de Marguerit, his sole merit consisting in looking up to the sky as he sauntered forth in the evening to while away the time.
Discoverers are losing their hold even of comets, as they are more frequently designated by the year of the discovery and the numerical order in which they have been discovered during the year. At present an attempt is made by Leverrier to abandon the present system of naming the asteroids after heathen deities, and to adopt, instead, the name of the discoverer, with the number of the asteroid in the order of discovery. This innovation is strongly resisted by most astronomers, and, at present, there is one. No. 59, without a name, simply because the discoverer, M. Chacornac, thinks with Leverrier, and persists in refusing to give it a name.
The appearance of the present comet naturally suggests the inquiry, Is it the great comet of 1556, the
