The herald., 1896-02-23
Predicted by Observers of q
Heavenly Wanderer
IN THE OPINION OF SERvISS
There Is No Possibility Of Its Hit
ting Us
II Implngsment Should Occur It Would Make
the Comet Very Sick and Take the
People Sneexs

ssocihted Press Special Wire.
New YORK, Feb. 22.-Garrett p. Serviss.
in an interview, discussed the report that
Perrine's comet is travelling towards the
earth at a rate Of 100000 miles day,
and that a collision was probable. He
said:
II judge the comet is small one, per-
haps as large as the earth. That would
not be very large for comet. 1t probably
is not coming towards US, as the dispatches
say. If it is then there is no possibility of
its hitting us. We are travelling nineteen
miles second, and by March IA, the date
they talk about its arriving, we shall be
millions of miles from where we are now.
To hit us it must be travelling toward the
spot about 4O,OOO,OOO miles from here,
where we shall be on March IA. Whether
or not the calculations that have
been made about the present position
OF the comet, its velocity and
its course are exact depends upon
whether the observations have been good
1t is not likely that they are exact, for q
comet is hazy body and it is difficult to
get good observations. If it was a point
like star, it could be told with mathemat-
ical certainty just where it would be at
certain minute or hour, but being q hazy
thing it is difficult to see where is the head,
the greatest point of condensation, and to
tell exactly what the comet is doing. You
remember in 1892 it was thought for some
days that a comet was going to hit us, and
then it was discovered that the comet was
going away from us instead of coming to-
ward us.
"A comet is not solid body like the
Garth. 1t is made up of minute bodies.
We might compare it with a dust cloud.
While in size it compares with the earth,
there is no comparison IN the solidity of
the two. So far as we have been able to
learn, there are no large particles of mat
ter in the comet. They are made up of
atoms of dust, of iron, nickel and some
other metal. Our atmosphere is practi-
cally impervious to such body. Seventy
or eighty miles above the earth, where the
atmosphere is so rare that the vacuum is
almost as good as that of a Crooke's tube,
there ia still enough resistance to disinte-
CRATE and destroy body like comet
travelling with the swiftness with which a
comet travels The particles would be-
come infinitely fine, no larger than the
intimate atoms of matter. They would
ultimately reach the earth.
'While in bulk on space the cor ct may
occupy the room of the earth and in that
sense it is as big as the earth it is not
packed solid like the earth. Take an or
cover a mile square of space, but if all the
particles we're compressed into the smallest
possible space they would occupy very
little room. So comet as large as the
earth might not contain more than enough
matter to make layer one tenth thou
sandth of a miIlimetre deeb, if spread over
the earth. If the comet was made of solid
chunks of matter the result would be
different.
1.-The heat generated by the contact with
the atmosphere would be sufficient to melt
things. For instance 1OO-ton piece of
iron might burn hole as big as the state
of New York. Under the tremendous heat
the earth and stone in the immediate
neighborhood would be vaporized immet1i-
ate!y. But there are no large particles of
of matter in the make up of a comet. There
is just one possibility of unpleasantness in
a comets hitting the earth. That is the
subsequent effects on the atmosphere. 1.
would seem likely that the atmosphere
would be filled with gaseous matter, and il
the comet was very big one, made up in
part of gases, as they are, it might induce
matter into the atmosphere injurious to
health. It might give us the grip or pre-.
dispose us to attacks of other diseases"