The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-21
COMETS AND METE0RS.
PROF. PROCTOR ON STRANGE AND
ERRA1IC HEAVENLY BODIES.

Go tO-LCSt ana missing comets -
Connection Between Comets and
Meteors.
Copyright, 1888, By the 44tthor)
Comets still remain among the mysteries
of science, though men no longer find them
in the same sense mysteries that they were
to the races and nations of old times
In former ages a comet was not only re-
garded as portent specially sent to warn
mankind, but men imagined they could tell
lust what kind of wa ming was signifed
One comet portended danger from flood.
another implied that Gods wrath was only
TO be apUeaSed by fire. This comet indi-
Gated pestilence. that other was a sword
waved by the hand of Gods angel over some
city doomed to punishmen t. Even so late
as the seventeenth century two great comets
were regarded as specially sent to warn the
inhabitants of London of approaching pun
ishment from pestilence and from fire.
Dafoe tells us of the comets of 1864 and 1866
that ''the old women, and the phlegmatic
hVpochoudrlacal part of the other sex
whom / could almost call old women.
too, remarked that those comets
passed directly over the city" (which shows
how much ahead of astronomers old wom-
en- may geO land that so very near the
houses, that it was plain they imported
said also, these portentous old women, that
the comet before the pestlence was faint
dull, languid color, and its motion very
heavy, dull and slow; but that the comet
before the fire was bright and sparkling, or
as Others said flaming, and it's motion swift
and furious, and that accordingly one fore
told heavy judgment, slow but severe, ter
rlble and frightful as was the plague, but
the other foretold a stroke sudden, swift
was tho pnnfio rrra rioy, - vi
IDENTIFY the old woman had very special in
formation. Nay, so particular some of them
were, Defoe goes on to say, THAT as they
looked upon that comet preceding the fire,
they fancied that they not only saw it pass
swiftly and fierc4y, aud could perceive the
motion with their eye. but even that they
heard it; that II made mighty rushing
noise, fierce aud terrible, though as at dis
tance and but just perceivable." Their ears
must have been originally good since at the
time of nearest approach to the earth the
comet of 1866 was many millions of miles
away, and separated from the earth by
spaces over which sound waves such as
other than "hypochondriac old women of
both sexes could distinguish cannot possibly
travel. Defoe himself seems to accept The
notion underlying such fancies-''I must
co"fess" he says, (speaking in this for him
self though his narrative of the plague is apo
cnrYpua, and he certainly had not formed
the opinion when looking at the comets
since he was but years old in 1865, that
was apt to look upon them the comets) as
the forerunners and warnings of Gods
judgments, aud especially, when, the plague
having followed the first, yet saw another
of the same kind, could not but say God
hath not yet sufficiently scourged the CITY
london, of course, the only city which an
Englishman in Defoes time could imagine
worthy of cometic visitants or of messages
from heaven.
All such readings of cometic portents have
been made after the event, the only time
when it is safe to prophesy. If war had fol
lowed the comet of 1864 or flood the comet
of 1866, we should have been told that the
former comet by its gloomy aspect aptlv
portended the desolation following war.
and that the swift motion and mighty rush.
ing noise of the comet of 1866 as significantly
threatened flood. Josephus could tell after
the event that the comet in form shortly
before the siege indicated trouble from the
sword and though the other comet in the
form of a sword which hung over Jerusa-
lem in ID 4vids time turned out not to indi-
cate war but peStilence, it was not difficult
to explain that the angel of the Lord had
put his sword into its sheath, in consequence
of special sacrifice IA round sum of money,
the application of which was directed by
worthy Mr.. Gad) offered by that rather
lively sinner, David. Lilly came
nearest, by lucky chance, to a guess at the
kind of trouble which followed the comet of
1864, and the wiseacres of Charles the Sec
ond's time had been arraigned for his guess,
subsequently printing a medal in which, by
special request. the comets of 1864 and 1866
were made to proclaim their several char
acters, the latter dropping torches on the
doomed city, the other pestilence---in the
form of multitudious small pot hooks. But
all claims made by old women of both sexes.
including astrologers and other humbugs
some of even higher pretensions) to inter
pref, or to have interpreted the
significance of comets, were luckily
knocked on the head by their conf
dent assertion that their favorite comets
hung over particular cities, when we con
slider how science has proved that the comets
which they thus pictured as hanging in the
air over doomed cities were at distances ex-
ceedlng many times the whole span (even
the whole circuit of the earth, we find it
difficult to understand the combined igno-
rance and impudence of those who in later
times have spoken as if prophecies had real
ly been made and really fulfilled about Ger
tain famous comets of antiquity The con-
temporaries of Pope Calixtus III. had rea-
sons to rejoice when the prayers of his army
OF FranclscanS against "the Turks the
great comet, and other enemies of Christen-
dom" were so far responded to that the
comet passed away from its threatening DO
sltlon; for they knew no better; but we
should look with contempt on any one who
IN these days should believe that the comet
passed away Tor as the historians of the day,
quoting Chronicles" put it, that the angel
OF the Lord returned his sword into its
SHEATH because of the prayers of any num-
Der OF monks or friars. For we know that
the comet never was where it seemed to be,
close above the earth) and that it passed
away from seeming to be there in response to
the attraction of gravity exerted by the sun.
But 1t Is not ono whit more preposterous to
attribute the retreat of that comet to the
prayers Of many friars, than to accept &C
counts of other comets and their supposed
influences during their approach and re-
treat, for no better reason than that the
particular comets in question did not chance
TO have been observed by astronomers.
The great comet of 1850 brought with it
what would seem to have been real danger,
though not in the way imagined either by
the porteut-mongers or by those who fear
lest comet should fall upon and so destroy
The earth. 1t passed so near to the sun as to
suggest at least the possibility that a comet
may one day fall straight upon the sun,
with effects which could scarcely but he Sc
rious-at least If the comet were q large
one. At its nearest this famous comet was
out million miles from the sun,--that is
The middle If its head was at that distance.
$ ten extended almost straight from the
sun to distance Of more than 10000. 600 of
miles, The beha siour of this cornets's tail
"A -.