Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1811-10-17
From the Boston Gazette.
ON COMETS.
MEssRs. RUSSELL AND CUTLER,

MEssRs RUSSELL AND CUTLER,
Philosophers and astronomers, have in all
ages, been much divided i'll their opinions con-
corning the nature of Comets. The only uni
formity of Sentiment which prevailed among
the ancients, was, that they were evil omens,
menacing mankind with evils and calamltles.
In perusng the pages of some modern VIII
tiers of great learning we are surprised at their
serious remarks on the direful presages which
Comets have occasioned in the minds OF men
eminent for their wisdom.*-Some of the ear
ly observers of natural phenomena had very
rational ideas of the Comets, as parts OF the
universal system. Many of the Chaldeans
held them to be lasting bodies, having stated
revolutions, like the planets, but in orbits so
extensive that they were invisible to the IN
habitants of the earth when they assembled in
10 the upper regions of the heavens, and to-
tally disappearing in their immeasurable aphe-
liza Others were of opinion that they were
only meteors raised very high in the air,
where they blazed for while, and, when the
matter of which they consisted was consumed
or dispersed, vanished out of sight, and exist
ed no longer.
Some of the Greeks before the time of Aris-
totle, supposed that Comet was vast assem-
blage or mass of very small stars, meeting to-
gether by reason of the irregularity of their
motions, and becoming visible by an union OF
their respective lights They accounted Tor
the disappearance Of the phenomenon, by ina
ginning that this union, was necessarily destroy
ed in short time, by the laws which compel
led those stars to separate, and each OF them
to proceed in its own particular direction.
Pythagoras, however, like the Chaldeans,
whom we have mentioned, supposed that CO.
NETS were planets of a peculiar species, or
erratic stars, disappearing in the superior parts
of their orbits, and becoming visible only IN
the inferior parts of them. Aristotle held
that the Comets were only kind OF transient
fires or metcors, consisting of exsations rails
ed to the upper region of the air, and there
set on fire and that they were far below the
course oisthe moon. He deemed the existence
of those temporary and vulgar lunllnares a.
mong the more regular and exalted bones
of the planetary system, inconsistent with his
doctrines, that the matter of the heavens is un.
regenerated, incorruptible, and not subject to
any alteration. The illustrious Boyle, in an
ESSAY on improbable truths, and the mature Of
yicarious information, considers this doctrine
of Aristotle as one that had been received on
the authority ola great name, although plausi'
BILE arguments, and the notions and axioms OIL
the most generally received philosophy were
repugnant to it. "Thus,' he continues, " thai
in heaven itself there should be generations &
corruptions was not only unobseryed before
the time of Aristotle (who thence argues the
incorruptibility of the celestial bodies) but i
is contradicted by his arguments. Ane
vet both many others, and !, have seen
great spsts, perhaps bigger than England
and even than all Europe itself, generated
and -dissipated on, or near the surface o
! the sun and several of the modern phi
| losophcrs and astronomers, having never hat
| the good fortune to see any OF them, the!
| must take these phenomena upon the credl
of such as have observed them. .fnd nncl
more must they do so, sho. in site Of the vul
| gar philosophy, (Which made aA comets sn6l4
nary, believe, there svere celestial and euen fr
mamentary comess. For, that they were above
=