Orgeres, France: Sighting of Vulcan — 26 March 1859
Mr. Lescarbault, an amateur astronomer, has observed a body of planetary size crossing
the disk of the sun. He wrote to Le Verrier, who came to Orgeres to meet with him and to verify the records of the observation in view of computing an orbit for Vulcan, the intra mercurial planet which he hypothesized. In his letter, Lescarbault wrote: Fig. 37: French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier, discoverer of Neptune “The duration of the passage of the new planet was one hour seventeen minutes, and twenty seconds of sidereal time. I have the conviction that, some day, a black dot, perfectly circular, very small, will be seen again passing in front of the sun (…) This object must be the planet or one of the planets whose existence in the vicinity of the solar globe you have announced a few months ago, Mr. Director, using this same wonderful power of computation that made you recognize the existence of Neptune in 1846. ”
Source: L Annee Scientifique (1878): 16. Case: W417