Osage Valley banner. (Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo.) 1879-1881, 1880-03-18
Gould's Comets II a Reappehrance
of the Wonderful COmel of lSi3i

The following extract "a the Boston
advertiser from Prof Pierecls lecture on
comets and moteOrs coiittips q descrip-
ton Of the wonderful conN of lS43, OF +
which Gould's comet Is supposed to be
q temperance;
About noon on the 24lQf February, |
1913, groups u people 81 tsa9y 81 The !
towns of New England, especially IN I
Portland, Me, collected Al the corners
OF the streets gazing up toward the sun.
Protecting their eyes in the shadows of
the houses, they saw u brilliant object
close to the sun. Such marvellous
spectacle had never before been seen.
A thoughtful sea Captain, Mr. Clarke,
brought out his sextant and repeatedly
measured the distance Of the strange
object from the limb of the sun, These
unique observations are ON record and
submitted to rigid criticism attest the
accuracy of the observer.
In about a week from this time a
wonderfully brilliant tail OF Il comet was
seen skirting the horizon soon after
sunset, and reaching more than one
third of the way round the sky. 1t was
now q tail without head, as II was at
first a head without tail but they were
members Of the same comet, The best
determination of its path was accom-
plished by the distinguished astrono-
iucr, Sears q. walker AZ It's perihe-
| lion It passed nearer the sun than
any known comet, with the single eN-
ception Of that OF 1880, computed Ivy Sir
1 Isaac Newton. and in the discussion of
which in the Principia he broached the
| first approximation to the true theory of
| the cometary tail These two comets
approached so close to the sun that it
would seem quite possible that It touch
ed its surface, or, at least, swept in
nearer than the solar corona. IL would
not have been an absurd hypothesis that
they were elected from the sun at the
ttime Of penetration, had it not been for
the fact that the comet Of 1850 was seen
on its way down 10 the sun, and for the
remarkable phenomenon which we are
about to describe concerning the comet
of lSi3. II may be claimed rs u not inn
possible hypothesis that each OF these
comets was at some former time the
product of solar eruption in accord
ance with Buffon's theory Of the origin
of comets. 1t would only involve a
force which would double the greatest
velocity given 10 the solar field of hy-
drogcu. But juster Interpretation Of
the phenomenon, and the one which
avoids the necessity Of an eXtrayagant
volcanic action, is to be found in the re-
lation between the comets and the me-
teors 1t is simply the splash Of the
. falling meteOrs In about an hour and
a half the comet OF 1913, like that Of 1850,
went round the sun from one side to the
J other. What would have become of the
, tail, which was reaching ont about one
, hundred millions of miles from the sun
to the earth's orbitP There have been
those who have actually adopted the in
credible, may say the impossible, hv-
) pOthesis that the tail rotated through
, this immense circuit, developing cen
/ trifugal force which all the united pow
ers of the universe could not have sus-
= tanned. No! The comet practically
: left its tail behind it, and began to grow
new tail as it receded from the
) sun. There were thus two tails nearly
t side by side. The new tail was distin-
3 guished because II commenced at the
, head of the comet, whereas the old de
serted tail began without any head nj
b some distance from the nucleus, and eX'
S tended further from the sun than the
D new tail. That such should be the phe
= nomena of this comet was suggested 10y
! a geometer, without knowing that it had
c been actually observed, IL was rs veri
= table and honest prediction rs If II hac
= been made previous 20 the observation
+ A double tail was observed on the foul
g first nights after the comets appearance
! at MONDAY. The visible separation o
r the two tails only lasted for few days
a because the earth passed almost at one,
into the plano of the comit's orbit, s'
that one tail eclipsed the other.