The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1910-04-22
HALLEYs COMET.
Continued from Page H.

astronomer plOIS curve WHAOA 10
the exact path followed by the comet
In travelling toward and from the
sun. He even indicates the exact
hour and minute when the comet will
reach any given point in its orbit.
In a sense he has his comet as much
beneath his thumb as train dis
hatcher his locomotives and cars.
HALEY completely dispelled the
dreadful divinity with which comets
once were Judged He also revealed
a source of danger of which even
medieval superstition had never
dreamed. By plotting the orbit OF
a chariot of fire which had inspired
no little di9may, he found that the
earths orbit had been approached
within four thousand miles, half the
diameter of the earth. Suppose the
earth had been struck by that fiery
wanderer? No one had ever thought
of the possibility. Cool-headed Hal
ley began to do some mathematical
wondering and decided that, If a
comets mass were comparable with
that of the earth, our year would have
been changed in length because the
earth's orbit would have been altered.
He also wondered what would happen
to the earth, and concluded: IF so
large a body with so rapid a motion
were to strike the earth-a thing by
no means impossible the shock
might reduce this beautiful world to
its original chaos" He even thought
it probably that the earth had actually
been struct by comet at some re-
mote period, struck obliquely, more
over, SO that the axis of rotation mad
been changed. Thus he was led to
infer that possibly the North Pole had
once been at point near Hudson s
Bay and that the rigor Of North Amer
ica's climate might thus be accounted
for. Lord Kelvin and Sir George
Darwin in our day have completely
upset his view.
IF THE EARTH WERE STRUCK BY A COM
Er's CORE.
The seed which was thus sown
bv HALEY has borne fruit. News
papers have dwelt fearfully on the
destruction of "this beautiful world,
and both Jules Verne and H. G. Wells
have made the collision of the earth
and a comet the subject Of thrilling
tails. In Halley's own time learned
men were brooding over the ultimate
destruction of the earth by collision
Doctor Winston, who succeeded New
ton at Cambridge in the LucaslaI
chair of mathematics, was sure that
comet caused the Deluge, and went 81
far to prophesy that a comet, as /
passed us on its outward course from
the sun, would ultimately brini
about general con1agration' AM
thus envelope the earth in flames
Iaplace. whose mathematical attain
ments were surpassed only by thos
of Newton, applied his brilliant mine
a century after HALEY, to the posslbl
ity of collision, and arrived at thi
conclusion, even gloomier than Ha
ley's:
The seas would abandon their al
cient beds and rush toward the me-
equator, drowning in one universe
deluge tho greater part of the huma
race. We see then in effect VIII
the ocean has receded from the hig
lands upon which we find incontes
able marks of its sojourn; we see no
the animals and plants of the Sout
hove baon ab1a exist in the climat
of the North where their remains an
imprints have been discovered.
The famous French mathematics
Lalande, showed that if comet
heavy as the earth-in other word
an impossibly heavy comet as
know nowadays-were to come wit
in six times the distance of the mot
It would exert such powerful
traction upon the waters of the glo
as to pull up tidal wave $4,000 re
above the ordinary sea-level and
undate the continents. Every Eul
moan mountain would be submerge
except Mount Blanco, and only the
habitants of the Rockies, the And
and the Himalayas would esca
death. Before his theory could
discussed before the Academy
Sciences its purport leaked out a
created the panic of 1878. Even
reassuring explanation of his p'
lished in the Gazette de France, COT
not Immediately allay the popul
fears.