Vulcan 2

The second part, from the fascinating forgotten work Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts (Allan, London 1928) by R.T. Gould, on the non-existent planet Vulcan. The first part can be found here.

Vulcan Landscape (from Star Trek, the Motion Picture)

 Leverrier, once convinced as to the real character of Lescarbault's discovery, lost no time in performing the necessary calculations which that worthy had found so baffling. He obtained, for the new planet's mean distance from the sun, about 13,000,000 miles, and for its period of revolution 19 days 17 hours. Lescarbault, who had seen Mercury in transit over the sun with the same telescope, and the same magnifying power, on May 8, 1845, considered that the new planet (which he decided to name "Vulcan") had a disc rather less than a quarter as large. Accordingly, Leverrier calculated that Vulcan's volume was probably about one seventeenth that of Mercury.

R.T. Gould and The Planet Vulcan 1

T.T. Gould & his wife Muriel

Found - a fascinating forgotten  work Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts (Allan, London 1928) by R.T. Gould. Rupert Thomas Gould (1890 – 1948), was a lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology. While in the navy in WW1 he suffered a nervous breakdown. During long recuperation, he was stationed at the Hydrographer's Department at the Admiralty, where he became an expert on various aspects of naval history, cartography, and expeditions of the polar regions. He gained permission in 1920 to restore the marine chronometers of John Harrison, and this work was completed in 1933. Jeremy Irons played him in Longitude, a dramatisation of Dava Sobel's book about John Harrison Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, which recounted in part Gould's work in restoring the chronometers.

Something of a polymath, he wrote an eclectic series of books on topics ranging from horology to the Loch Ness Monster. He was a member of the Sette of Odd Volumes (Brother Hydrographer) and the book Oddities is dedicated to the club. He was a science educator, giving a series of talks for the BBC's Children's Hour starting in January 1934 under the name "The Stargazer", and these collected talks were later published. He was a member of the BBC radio panel Brains Trust. He umpired tennis matches on the Centre Court at Wimbledon on many occasions during the 1930s. This is the first part of the chapter on the planet Vulcan (more to follow)-

THE PLANET VULCAN

  Many things, ranging from collar-studs to battleships,* are quite easy to lose. Heavenly bodies, however, are not usually regarded as included in that category. Yet for such to be lost is not an absolutely unknown occurrence. Biela's comet, for example, after circling round the sun in a regular and decorous orbit for a considerable time, was seen as two comets in 1852,† failed to return in 1859, and has not since been heard of since. Some of the minor planets, too–tiny bodies a few miles in diameter–have proved so troublesome to rediscover that an American astronomer, the late Professor J. C. Watson, endowed a Home for Lost Planets‡–that is to say, he created a special fund for the purpose of having the orbits of the twenty-two minor planets discovered by himself regularly computed and kept up to date, thus ensuring that such planets would always be "present and correct" when required.

* Some years ago, on draining a disused dock at one of the French naval yards, an old and forgotten submarine was found in it. See Punch, 3-II-09.

† One, at least, of its observers was a total abstainer.

‡ In humble imitation of this kindly act, the present writer maintains a Home of Rest for Aged Typewriters–now (1944) sheltering some seventy inmates.

The Surface of Vulcan by nethskie

 
  The story of the planet Vulcan, however, is not so much that of a lost Planet as of one which, although once accepted as a member of the Solar System, never existed.

A Look at Monte Carlo

This is a cutting from a book from about 1990 that fell out of another book...wonder if this is the man who broke the bank!

A Look at Monte Carlo

The longest consecutive run of even numbers in the history of roulette at Monte Carlo is a series of twenty-eight. The mathematical odds against a series of twenty-nine even numbers occurring are so great, that the wheel at Monte Carlo would have had to have been spun since prehistoric times (about 6500 years ago) to give a statistically justified expectation of such a sequence occurring once.

Odd Showers [frogs, lizards and pilchards]

From a scarce work (1882) which covers such curious subjects as revivals after execution, female jockeys, Blind Jack the roadmaker of Knaresborough, singular funerals, whimsical wills, curious epitaphs, the Caistor Gad-whip Manorial Service, dog whippers and sluggard wakers, how the town of Alfreton was played for at a game of cards etc.,The author seems to have been a contributor to 'Notes & Queries' and fascinated by the odd, curious and strange. God preserve us from a shower of pilchards...

  More remarkable still than a shower of frogs
is that of lizards. The scarcity of these animals, one would think, would almost exclude the possibility of their appearing in such numbers as to constitute what might be termed a shower. The following, however, appeared in the Montreal Weekly Gazette of 28th December, I857-- " During the heavy rain of Sunday last, live lizards, some of them measuring four inches in length, fell from the clouds like manna, though not as plentiful, nor alf so welcome. They were found crawling on the side walks and in the streets, like infantile fugitive alligators in places far removed from localities which they inhabit."

  Carriber, in his interesting little volume, entitled " Odd Showers," gives the following account of a descent of fishes: "On Wednesday before Easter, in I666, a pasture field of two acres, at Cranstead, near Wrotham, in Kent, was all overspread with little fishes, supposed to have rained down, as there was at the time a great tempest of thunder and rain. Wrotham is far  from the sea, there were no fish-pinds near, but a great scarcity of water. The fish were of the length of the little finger, and proved to be about a bushel; none were found in any adjoining fields. This account was given a letter from Dr. Robert Conny, to the late Dr. Robert Plot, F.R.S., who it seems had promised the former an account of a shower of herrings."

  The Rev. Aaron Roberts, B.A., curate of St. Peter's, Caermarthen, wrote a letter to the Times, which appeared in that paper of February 25th, I859, giving particulars of a shower of pilchards which occurred at Mountain Ash, Glamorganshire. From his account it appears that some of the fishes were about four inches long. A number were caught and preserved in fresh water, salt water killing them almost as soon as they were put in it.

O r i g i n a l   s c a n   o f   t h e   e x c e r p t .