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December 6th [date underlined] Rain & sunshine -- To Greene's [?] and at 2 according to appointment went with Mr. Coleman to the Institute of France where we found assembled many of the savans [?]] of Paris with the distinguished astronomer Mr. Arago presiding at these [illegible] which take place once a week the members each in turn lecture upon the subject most familiar to him for which they receive from the government three thousands franks a year. The debates on this occasion were not of the most interesting nature being the potatoe disease and the manufacture of diamonds. --

The celebrated Mr. Verier was present with notes and diagrams relating to the heavenly bodies. This gentleman who is quite young say 35 is the person who lately inserted from Mathematical calculations, and actual observations that the "juste milieu" of the planetary system required that there should exist another planet in a spot indicated by him in the heavens. and requested of those having charge of the national observatory to make the necessary oservations - when to their astonishment and that of all the world, then --