The Republican journal., 1896-03-26
waldo county is entitled to % delegates, as fol
"The Comet" Again.

To THE EDITOR OF TIE JoUPNAL: 1t
was my painful duty some years ago to
refute through your columns some silly
ideas, o. lack of ideas, concerning the
production OF rain. in behalf of science
and common sense it again appears in
cumbent on somebody to say word in
defense of the cometaly theory, so grossly
mlsrepresented by your correspondent in
the issue of March 18th. 1t seems to me
to he serious matter to lay before the pub
lie such silly trash as appears in your cor
respondents article upon THE Comet"
Many of your readers depend very largely
upon the columns of the newspaper for
then Information upon every subject, and
it is Of tie utmost importance that cor
rect ideas concerning natural phenomena
should be given them; and in defense of
such readers, beg leave to insert in your
valuable paper a few words concerning
the comet and the article before named.
In the tilst place, it is evident that the
writer las only the crudest knowledge Of
scientific facts. For his ignorance he is
to be litied and not blamed; but to place
before the public unsound and even ridi-
culous theories concerning nature and
her works, is in the highest degree repre-
hensble.
Secondly he seems totally unaware that
he is ignorant. He deals with the phe-
nomena Of the universe with the greatest
confidence, as if he had a free pass into
nature laboratories, and had been Initial
ed into many of the secrets that lie hid
den from the 'briliant astronomers.
am well aware that every uneducated
man has theories to account for every
thing but fortunately he does not publish
them in the newspapers.
He ridicules the belief that comet
might strike the EARTH Now, no fact in
Astronomy is better established than that
Of the possibility of collision between
the earth and comet The probability,
however, is very SMALL since comets APP
proach the sun from all points of space,
and the chance that one should cross the
earth S olbit at the point " here the earth
happened to be, would indeed be very
small. But we must remember that the
bead OF many comets is very large, often
exceeding 800, 600 miles in diameter, and
taking this fact into consideration, it
seems stranger that so many of them
should escape than that a collision should
sometimes occur After children have
read your correspondence article, they
will no Longer fear comets, but | fear
that their know ledge of such an interest
ing phenomenon will not be greatly in
creased.
Let US, however, tly to learn what your
corfcspt ndent's theory of comets is. The
tail oT tie comet seems to be the most in
teresting object to him. Whether he ex-
plains il as the light of innumerable stars
shining forth from the depths Of space, or
-'changed sunlight,' or an extraordinary
electric display, is hard to determine. At
any late, we Learn from him that a comet,
like any well bred animal, always carries
its tail behind it when approaching the
sun, but when departing from our system
it throws its tail over it's shoulder, or
rather goes away tail first, probably to
keep its tail from getting burnt by the
magnetic rays which it has induced in
the sun.
The fact is, that a large number of COM
cts visit our system and depart without
showing any tail at all. The changed
sunlight of the tail is only reflected sun
light exactly like that of the moon. The
tail Of a comet is made up of gaseous par
ticles expelled from the head by electric
repulsion, and reflect light to us as other
particles in space on which the sun shines.
But your correspondent says that
comet is an electric ball'' which comes
to charge the sun with life giving electric
ity.
Now, | have yet to learn that a comet
has any more electricity than any other