Daily Arizona silver belt., 1910-02-19
THE TALE OF A COMETS TAIL

Comet 'A1910" having made its bow and de- parted beyond the ken of man, the boy in uni form has hung alongside the stage card show ing that the next number on the program is Hal ley's comet which is about to play return en- gagement after an absence of seventy-f years in the solar provinces; so the audience sits ex- pectantly, awaiting it's appearance.
 Meanwhile, in order to quicken the anticipa- tion of the public, some of the astronomers are playing the part of press agent in a very effec- tive manner Camille Fammarion, the French astronomer who is most known in this country through the pages of the yellow journal Sun day "magazine' part assures us that on May 19 the earth will be swept by the tail of the comet. .
 That is interesting indeed, especially as the average spectator doesn't know just what a comets tail is made of, and whether or not 1t will hurt to be swept by it.
 Next comes Professor Edwin Booth, vaguely described as "of California; and as "a well known expert on spectrum analysis" and bids us tremble He says the comets tail is made out of cyanogen gas, and that if enough of that gas mixes with the earth $ atmosphere the union would form "the deadly gas known as hydro cyanic acid, which is the most deadly poison
 
 animals.
 eff the astronomers are right in their estl- mate of the amount of cyanogen gas in the tail of the comet" cheerfully continues Professor Booth, land if the vapors of that body do en- vel6p the earth, we may have a chance to feel the sensations of the bugs and insects which are killed by the use of this deadly gas as an ex- terminator.
 t4x-, lon T q but we are reluctant to believe that Providence has found us such a pest that it is likely to destroy us with ''bug exterminator " That would be crowning humiliation, indeed $,
 On the whole we vastly prefer to listen to Professor Burckhalter of the Chabot university, ; Oakland, and moreover he has the distinction of being associated with an institution whereby we may know him and pin faith in his predictions greater than we have in those of the unattached Professor Booth. He stoutly maintains that there is very little gas in the comets tail, and that people have nothing to fear.
 Still more cheering information comes from Professor w. J. Husey, astronomer of the Uni verslty of Michigan We had been about to work up a feeling of confidence and security based on a belief that the earth will not be destroyed by a comets tail for the good reason that it never has been destroyed by comets tail. Comes Professor Husey, however, to tell us that the arth has been swept by comet $ tails before, and nobody was any the worse for it. He says the comet is 100000 miles away, and the gas from t won't be enough to be noticed ''It would be ike adding one molecule of gas to large 'oom, he says. "There cannot be any possible langer even to an insect. You will find fifty imes more of the same gas in any chemical 
 Halley's comet never visited the earth before without soaring lot of people half to death, and maybe 1t will scare some this time. But it is much peasanter, if less exciting, to refuse to be- leve that there can be any harm in being swept y the tail of comet that is 14O0O,OOO miles way.