The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-11-11

fewer than four distinct comes 1T Is not
surprising that astronomers mould have
renewed attentieA to these Gu
rious members of the universe. A great
authority, Mr.. Hind, has just published
some Investigations upon the comet
named after HALEY, by which he con-
firms the belief that this particular body
really does revisit and circumnavigate
the sun every seventy-tive or seventy
six wears. This was pretty surely UNI
derstood before, but recent historical
notices establish the fact, and those who
live so long may count on seeing Hal
LEWIS comet about A. u. 1910. 1t will
on that occasion come very close, IN
deed. to the earth, ten times closer than
at its last appearance. in 1883. closer
even than in 1456. when 1t almost
frightened Europe and Pope Caliixtus
out of their wits. But nobody now en-
tertains any fear of comets. partly by
reason of the information afforded by
science, and partly, no doubt, because
familiarity breeds-if not exactly con-
tempt-a feeling akin to indifference.
Yet we should no more show disresPect
to comets than to the equator. They re.
main mysterious and wonderful, though
thew have ceased to be dangerous. and
If people nowadays lightly speculate
upon good vintage because there have
appeared four of these " tailed stars"
OF at worst put down the bad weather
to their influence, this same Halley's
comet reminds us of the painful nerv-
BUSINESS of our ancestors. In B. G. IL
it swept through the sky, and was be-
lieyed by the trembling Romans to be
the soul of julius Caesar, fOreboding
death and ruin. In A. D. 837 it became
visible during Holy Week, and so
alarmed Louis the DebOnnaire that he
passed the night in religious services,
and spent thousands of crowns in ex-
piatory masses. In 9S9 its appearance
was taken as so certain q sign that the
world would come to an end at the close
of the thousand years that legal docu-
ments used to begin: "NOw that the
contamination of things approacheth."
The comet came again in A. d. 1866,
lust before the Norman invasion OF En-
gland, and the Bayeux tapestries rep
resent King Harold and his English peo-
pie gazing in horror and dismay upon
| its fiery nucleus and streaming tail, to
which general opinion confidently at
tributed afterward the catastrophe OF
the Battle of Hastings. Pope Urban
Nv. died in July, 1914, and his death
was put down to the comet then show
ing, but in June 1856. " Halley's" wild
wanderer was so near, so brilliant and
so big that all Christendom was
troubled, and Pope Callixtus-already
mentioned-declared it with much
perturbation of mind. to be a vision OF
the cross; while the Saracen Sultan
proclaimed that it was "the scimitar OF
Mahomet" presaging victory. On that
date the comet showed train more
than sixty degrees long; and was nearly
as terrible when it returned in 1927,
"putting many into so great a fright
that they died, and making others
sick.n Imaginative minds saw upon
this phenomenon figures OF weapons
and decapitated heads; hens are said to
have laid eggs with picture of the
comet on their shells, and persons OF
high rank took the warning OF such
bodies deeply to heart-as ii heaven
cared so much for rank and title. The
brother of Louis XIV, when comet
came suddenly and the courtiers were
discussing the monitions of the portent
with skepticism, exclaimed with sigh;
"Ah, gentleman. you can talk at your
ease if you like; you are not Kings and
Princes"
If. however, mankind has ceased tt
fear these ethereal pilgrims. it can moi
but marvel at the one species of heaven
" bodies which thus fly from universe
to universe. Comets must have 8
business and function of some sort
. Something or other, important to al
, the planets which they skirt upon thei
fight must result from their proximity
and passage. There is. indeed, alread!
a "moral to their tail" in the exploded
absurdity of the belief that they come
to uortend the demise of great men, O
, some natural catastrophe. Shakespeare
: puts such an idea into the mouth o
> Calphurnia, "When beggars die Their
|. are no portents seen. The heaven
themselves blaze forth the death
Princes" We measure the vain igno
" rance of our race when we dwell upol
!. the bygone superstitions that Haley
. comet could travel 3,20O,OO0,OO0 Q
;, miles to betoken a Pope's decease o
9 the landing of William the Conqueror
Yet will the earth and its inhabitant
have got rid of all such foolish notion
when this same silver roamer anon
|, the worlds returns in May, 1910?
y . is blu: slowly that human beings hav
y learned that the universe was not cres
" ted to furnish a spangled curtain {
. night for them. Very few have bee
q the ethereal journeys made by Haley
- comet since it was a capital offens
. against the church for Gallileo to pro
- claim that the sun did not 60 roun
~ this infinitesimal bali, and could not b
: - stayed, therefore, at Ajalon or els'
% where. Men have changed these nal
~ row and eotistical views for concel
-, - tions of the world of life and light le
n fiattering to ourselves, but intinitel
- more full of splendid possibilities of e,
N istence and boundless developments
40 40 creative power and glory. Many ar
y, =, many another illusion-derived fro
~ the feeble and deceitful senses-abid
y. with us, at which perhaps generation
Il to come will smile, as we do at Har0
d. n