The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-09 00:00:00

THE COMET.

The following letter, dated Berlin, March 9th, 1843, has
been received by a gentleman in this town from Lieut. Metre
Petrie, R.N. :

" An extraordinary exhibition of nature has been given us
here, in the shape of a comet; but of such an immense di-
mension, as to cause the utmost wonder even in the most
learned in these matters, and the geratest consternation in
the ignorant,—floods to overflow the earth, war, pestilence,
and fame, have all been predicted in consequence of this most
beautiful stranger's appearance. I first observed it on the
evening of the 2nd of this month, and at this date, no one in
this province has dared to write a word in the papers upon
the subject, so deficient are the Brazilians in astronomical
studies. At the hour of 7on the 2nd instant, 1 saw for the
first time a faint stream of light shooting up into the sky from
the western horizon; but on the following evening we had a
beautiful figure of a luminous pillar, standing, as it were, on
a dark base of clouds, and reaching nearly half-way to our
zenith,—it was like a pillar of polished silver, with the most
brilliant moon-booms plying upon it, the reflection upon the
calm water, added greatly to its beauty ; altogether, it is an
extraordinary phenomenon, and perhaps never was the like
seen by the inhabitants of this earth since they were able to
communicate and hand down accounts of such things to pos-
terity. I mean, with regard to its extreme splendour and di-
mensions. On the evening of the 7th I found the comet setting
about in the horizon at the hour of eight, and thirty-nine mi-
nutes, and this evening it was even more splendid ; its mag-
nificence was beyond conception ; it measured from the
nucleus, or head of the comet, to the end of the tail, or
growth, 40 30, and fully double the diameter of the moon. It
seemed to be very dense to about 38, then more attenuated,
the nucleus or head was fully defined, and appeared about a
star of the first maguitude ; the sides of the tail were so well
defined that it had all the appearance of a highly polished
pillar ; the tail must be nearly two hundred millions of miles
in length, and thirty-seven millions of miles in breadth; and
must be flying at the rate of upwards of one million of miles
in an hour. I believe it must have come much nearer the
sun than any comet we have an account of. The tail did not
dilate, nor contract, but appeared to bend towards the south
—the comet set bearing W. by S., S., and the moon's
angle with it was about 53. I have seen several comets, but
this more than rivals all put together. I remember the one
of 1811, which was considered a large one ; and believe the
greatest length of its tail was 23i, and this is 40 29.

IMPORT OF FOREIGN CATTLE.—Last week, the Soren
Winkel, from Aalborg, brought 49 oxen and two cows to
Hull. At Southampton, 40 oxen have been received from
Spain.

LORD ROSSE'S TELESCOPE.—We are happy.to announce,
that " the great telescope," under the immediate superin-
tendence of his lordship, is progressing towards completion.
A large number of artizans and labourers are employed in
erecting this truly wonderful instrument.—Leinster Express.
The Glasgow Courier states, that a young man named
Briton, is in custody, on the charge of embezzling, to a large
amount, the funds of his employers, the Glasgow and Ayr
Railway Company.

The amount of sheep, lamb, and Alpaca wool imported
into the United Kingdom in the year 1812, that paid a dutg
of one penny and one halfpenny per lb, was 45,881,639 lbs.
re-exported, 4,085,190 lbs. Total consumption, 44,022,141
lbs. The quantity imported, the produce of the British pos-
sessions in 1842, was 18,467,212 lbs; re-exported, 106,473
lbs.

INFANTICIDE.—A very pretty and genteel young woman
about 22 years of age, has been taken before the magistrate
at the Queen-square Police-office, London, and committed
for trial, on her own confession, on the charge of having at
two different periods given birth to an illegitimate child, and
murdered the infants by strangulation, and then destroyed
their bodies by fire.

RAILWAY ACCIDENT ON THE LIEGE LINE. -Our Dover
correspondent sends us the following under yesterday's date :
" We have learned, from a Spanish gentleman, who arrived
here last night, per the Widgeon, from Ostend, that a fearful
accident had occurred on the previous day (Wednesday) on
the Liege Railway, by which six persons had lost their lives,
and fourteen had been seriously wounded. The accident, as
we understood our Spanish informant, arose from one of the
carriages taking fire.—Globe.
CORN-LADEN Sulrs.--A retr,rn of the number of ships
laden with foreign corn, entered inwards at the ports of the
United Kingdom, between January 5, 1842 and 1843, shows
the following results :—Of British ships there were 2,346
entered, containing 1,661,294 quarters of wheat, 17,347
quarters of barley, 103,571 quarters of oats, 136,028 quarters
of beans and peas, 528,515 cwt. of flour, 10,334 quarters of
Indian corn, 3,780 quarters of rye, and 5,466 cwt. of oatmeal.
The number of foreign ships entered were 1,857, containing
999,792 quarters of wheat, 50,857 quarters of barley, 193,856
cwt. of flour, 1,312 quarters of Indian corn, 6,237 quarters
of rye, and 71 cwt. of flour. Of 1,857 foreign ships, 48 were
from Russia, 39 from Sweden, 308 from Denmark, 531 from
Prussia, 113 from Geimany, 89 from Holland, 3 from Bel-
glum, 175 from France, 27 from Spain, 71 from Italy, 42
from Austria, 1 from Greece, 1 from Egypt, and 128 from
the United States of America.