Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-01-19
ALot of Comets.

New York Times
Tn the best encyclopedias, under the
title Comets. may be found page after
nace of the choicest italics and hlero>
glvnhics known to scientific persons. IL
"a ,mnossible not TO have the highest
resnect for whatever these cryptograms
NAV mean. but for general reading
something more intelligible. even II
less exciting. seems 10 be demanded.
There are in all about $50 recorded
comets. The $40 seen before l6l0
must of course, have been observed
with the naked eve. The first known
comet appeared in ITO B. c., so that
the average Of discovery then was
abou. one in tweniy-four years. But
from the birlh of Christ to the lnven-
ton of the telescope they were seen
much more frequently In those ,6oO
wears The average was one comet LOT
every four. In the 270 years since the
invention of the telescope. 290 comets
have been seen, put only few Of them
without aids to vision. Tycho Brahe,
the Danish astronomer. who died I'D
1901. was the first to show that there
were celestial bodies moving in regions
far beyond this earth's Atmosphere
And Isaac Newton frs: showed that
thoir apparently erratic paths were
strictly governed by the laws OF gravi-
tation. A modern invention, the spec
troscope. shows that thew consist IN
mart of yaporized carbon. So that while
a great deal remains to be learned about
comets, yet enough is known to make
them no more portentous objects than
any planet. Even in quite recent
times. no wever, the ignoran. have been
deeply moved by them. Thus. William
Miller's predictions Of the coming OF
Christ and the end of the world found
no small support in the comet OF l843
which was visible to the naked eye III
noon. Even more ludicrous was the
belief of some that the first steam boat
which ever sailed on the Ohio was the
comet of 1871. which had fallen into the
river. The extreme absurdity OF this
hest annears from the almost incon
ceivable tenuity Of the substance OF
comet. In comparison with 1t air. is
almost a solid. Thus comet may De
thousands or millions miles broad, and
vet faint stars may be seen shining
through it. so that, even though they
move million miles an hour-some-
thing which il is hard to believe OF sc
incoherent mass they would suffer
more than this world in case OF COLL
sion. 1t is, indeed, believed that the
world actually did pass through the tall
of comet on June 80, 1861, and then
there was not even smell tf smoke
And the collision between Jupiter anc
a comet III ITO is known TO have re-
suited disastrously to the comet. IL
did, it is true, try its best to pass the
planet, but Jupiter's attraction was far
too strong and the comet became caught
among Jupiter's moons. Not one ol
those little bodies was disturbed in the
slightest, but the comet, when it was
released after some four months con-
finement. was so changed III its orbit
that it could scarcely be recognized by
its most intimate friends. This llabil-
ity 20 disturbance makes computations
about cometary orbits liable TO errors
Otherwise they would arrive according
to schedule time with far greater regu
larity than any railroad train. Bror
sons comet is expected in 1884 and
Halley's in 1911 and many others might
be named. Some of the figures about
comets are among the most stupendous
plavthings of astronomers, those Brah
minis among mathematicians. Thus
Donati's comet year is equal to 1850 ol
the earth's and its gres test distance
from the sun is 500 100000 miles. The
corresponding figures for the comet o!
1911 are 3,050 years and 10000 ,OOO,OOt
miles.