Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1882-10-28
AN AERIAL WONDER.
Comets ami the Views of Prof Proctor on
Their Peculiarities.
ELECTRICITY FORMS THE TAIL

ELECTRICITY FORMS THE TAIL
Professor Richard A. Proctor, the
distinguish scientist, writes as fol
lows to the New York Herald con.
cerning comets: During the last
two years many comets, some of them
bright ones, have been seen, and
from all sides the question reaches
me, Do we know more about comets
than we did six years agoi L wish
could honestly answer, We know
great deal more, but l cannot
Still, something has been added to
our knowledge, and unless l mis-
take, although that something may
in itself be slight, the manner in
which it has been learned is such
that the small modicum of new
truth is full of promise. / suppose
every one who reads these lines
knows pretty well what are now the
chief difficulties in cometic science.
We want to know why, as the comet
approaches the sun. it throws all
around it, but chiefly toward the sun,
the luminous appendage we call the
como or really, SO far as we can
Judge, nebulous or gaseous en-
velope We want to know why the
matter thus thrown out seems to be-
come subject to repulsive force by
which it is strongly driven from the
sun to form what is called
THE COMETS TAIL.
We want to know how much of
the light of the comets nucleus Tor
brightest part), coma or nebulous
surrounding, and tail is due to. the
mere reflection Of sunlight and how
much is inherent? Also, having as
certained, beyond all possibility of
doubt or cavil, that part of the light
in all three cases is inherent, we
want to know how sufficient heat is
acquired to raise the nucleus, coma
and tail to actual inherent luminos-
ity? Now, in former years, and es-
pecially during the appearance of
the comets OF Winnecke and Bror-
sen, in 1868, astronomers recognized
that a part OF the light of some COM
cts, at any rate, is due to the in
herent luminosity of certain COM
pounds of carbon and hydrogen.
DIR. William Higgins OF London is
not very daring scientific specu'a-
ter; he usually errs on the side of
excessive caution Indeed / have my
self been stating respecting his re-
suits. for the last fourtain years,
what he now only begins to state for
himself); therefore, when he does
speak positively We may believe that
he has found the evidence over
whelmingly strong. Well, he says,
in lecture very recently delivered
before the Royal Institution, "The
general close agreement in the case
of some twenty comets of the bright
bands in the cometary light with
these seen in the spectra Of hydro
carbons justifies us fully in ascribing
the light of these comets to matter
which contains carbon in combina-
ton with hydrogen" Until quite re-
Gently this has been the only matter
which has been clearly recognized
by the speetroscopic method as form
ing part of
THE SUBSTANCE OF COMETS.
And the wonder has been that sub
stance so refractory as carbon a sub
stance which cannot be vaporized in
our laboratories under any ordinary
conditionsAshou thus appear in the
form of luminous vapor in the case of
comets further from the sun than our
own earth. tits difficult to see where
the heat can come from by which the
carbon present in these bodies can
thus give light evidence (which means
also heat evidence) of its presence.
1t is not carbon only which is thus
shown to be present. nor even carbon
and hydrogen only: nitrogen seems
also to be indicated Professors Live
ing and Dewar have found that GER
tain bright lines are only present in
the spectra of certain compounds of
carbon when nitrogen is also present,
and that in fact they indicate the
presence OF cyanogen, well known
nitrogen compound Of carbon. Now,
these bright lines have not only been
seen, they have been photographed
in the spectrum Of the brightest comet
of 1881 (by DIR. William Huggins in
London, and by DIR. Henry Draper in
New York;. Apart, then, OF the light
Of every comet is inherent, and comes
from luminous mixture of carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and probably
oxygen also. A part of the light is,
however, reflected sunlight, nearly
the wholeof the tails light being thus
reflected and a great portion Of the
light of the coma, with a smaller por-
ton Of the light of the nucleus. Even
here, however, we cannot be assured
that all the light which might be re-
fiected sunlight is really SO. The only
way in which we can distinguish such
light from inherent light coming from
glowing solid or liquid matter is by
noting that when we analyze reflected
sunlight certain tints thousands oi
them) are missing, SO that across
THE RAINBOW TINTED STREAK,
Into which the spectroscope resolves
such light, there are seen numbers Oi
dark lines corresponding to these
missing tints. In the case OF light
from self-luminous solid or liquid
mass no such dark lines are seen
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