The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1883-01-13
THE GREAT COMET OF 1882.

On the l4th day of September, 1882 the Sun
IN a violent electromagnetic storm. by its CEN
~trifugal force threw of a cosmic mass of its
matter %, 900 miles long, by near 5000 in width,
beyond its immediate attraction far enough to
give it a start on it's %elliptical course through
space. This is the first great off-shoot from the
Sun since Mercury was thrown from it. 1t is
probably the last effort OF the Suns expiring
energies. There may have been lesser matters
thrown free to appear as comets and which finally
become asteroids.
Upon the same day that the great mass was
thrown of, it was seen as a comet in it's PEREZ
helion in Hawaii. That perehelion was the
comet 9 birth from the Sun. Had 1t not pro-
ceeded from the Sun, it would have been seen
some weeks approaching its perehelion. But it
never was seen. for it leaped forth from the Sun
full grown like Minerva from the brow OF
Jupiter.
1t is an embryo inter-M ercurial planet. 1t
will proceed for ages in it's e~lliptical course. per-
forming p~arabolic curves, gradually becoming
more circular until it solidI6es as it cools. and
assumes its place as a planet. IL will never be
nearer the sun, but will gradually recede from it,
as its body becomes more dense and its orbit
more circular.
IL is impossible now to calculate the exact
period of its return. but l judge approximately
that it will reach and pass its aphelion and re-
turn about the month of November, 1888. The
theory of Ca plain Thomas Spencer as it regards
the origin of the comet is a correct one.
The discovery of The great comet must be
accorded to Hawaii. In the forenoon Of the llth
day of June. 1882, as | am informed, some shep-
herds at the Northeastern slope of Maunakea
saw it in broad daylight, and reported 1t to Hilo.
where the clouded atmosphere prevented any
observation for some days afterwards. On ihe
night of the 18th Captain E.. d. Crane, of the
schooner Haleakala. sailing between Honolulu
and Hawaii. was awakened by one of his seamen.
with the intelligence that a star wac on fre-a
smoking star, as he called it. About the same
date D.. II Hitchcock, Esq with others, was on
the slope of Maunakea and saw the comet in
broad daylight. If scientists wish a name for
the comet, let them call it after Hawaii, for here
it was first discovered. 1t was not until the 18th
of September that any astronomers east OF Hawaii
discovered it.
1t was not until the 1st October that the at
m~osphere permitted 1t to be observed in Hilo
In my letter OF the 5th of that month l wrote
the following L" The early rising comet gazers
have been gratiied to their hearts content in
looking at the embryo world, that IN a few mil
lions of years will be shorn of it's tail, have more
solIdity, and a less eccentric orbit This was
only a hint thrown out to learn if any one would
advert to it. 1t passed unnoticed, however.
Captain Thomas Spencer in several communica-
tions has set both the true theory of comets being
thrown from the sun, and "f the sun being fed by
nebula or the cosmic matter in space, as he calls
it by = molecules" 1t alludes to the same atomic
matter which the German astronomers call .'star
dust, = and which is diffused through intersteIlan
space. That there is II resisting medium near
the sun is now generally conceded, and what ID
that but the cosmic vapor, referred to by Captain
Spencer as /. molecules p HILo.