Morning journal and courier., 1882-04-19
The Cataelysm of Izz3. rr-. .i.s. r,.r,1,aIi AEarrazfr,a


 In the year 1773 report got abroad-how encendered Is not known-that Laiande, one of the ablest mathematicians of the day, had predicted the end of the world, as the result of collision to take place between comet and the earth. We say it is not known how the report got abroad The circumstance which gave rise to the report is, however, well known, though avowedly there was nothing in it to have suggested special aux- iety The difficulty is to connect the circurn- stance with the exaggerated terrors presently excited. It had been announced that Lal4nde would read before the Academy Of Sciences paper entitled Reflections on those Comets which Can Approach the Earth" It would be difficult to inquire how the report of this came gradually to be changed into the def- nite news that in the year 1TT3-nay, the very day was ~named, on May 20. 1773-a comet would encounter and destroy the earth, did not recent experience show how statement of one kind may be changed through carelessness. not through willful mis- representation-into 8 statement of an en- tirely different kind, when lin it's later forml it seems to indicate the approach of some great danger to the earth. Plantamour, lec- turing in 1872 about comets and meteors, says that the comet of 1862 passed near the earth's orbit that along its track are travel ing millions and millions of meteoric bodies. and that when the earth crosses its track me- teoric displays may be expected, adding that the next display of the kind may be expected on or about Aug. Il or 12. Presently the news Is travelling about that on Aug. 12. 1872. comet will fall upon the earth and we shall all be destroyed. Who gave to Plantamour's true and innocent statement this false and mischievous formg No one can say, no one can point out where or how the true became merged into the misleading, the misleading into the incorrect. the incorrect into the mt terly false. But the terrors excited were none the less real that no one could tell wheuce they came or how they were gene erated Once such fears have been excited if seems useless to attempt to quiet them, al least among the hopelessly ignorant. who un- fortunately are so numerous and So readily made the victims of idle terrnrs. Lalanda publishes in the GazettS dc FrdHoe of May :, 1773, the following advertisement to quiet es he hoped, the public mind: IN. LaIande had not time to read his memoir upon comets which may approach the earth and cause changes in her motions but he would observe that it is impossible to assign the epochs of such events The next comet whose return Is expected is the one which should return in IS years but 1t Is not one of those which can hurt the earth" Bat this tolerably explicit statement had no ef- feet. NJ Lalapde's study was crowded day after day with anxious inquirers 4 number of pious people, of whom contemporary | journal made the very rude remark that
 sthey were as ignorant as they were imbe- 1 ciIe. S begged the archbishop of Paris to ap- ] point 4O days prayer to avert the threat ! ened danger. which for sonas reason they agreed was to take the form of mighty del- ] upe. And he would have complied with their request only he was told by members of the 1 academy that he would bring ridieu1e upon himself and science if he did so.