THE CABLED COMET. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 27, 31 July 1907, Page 3

THE CABLED COMET. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — The comet . cabled about in yaur issue this evening may possibly be identical with tho extraordinary object seen 'in 1T44, and known as Cheaeaux comet, frpm its first discoverer. This comet has seven tails spread out like an enormous fan, and has never been heard of since tho year mentioned. Its head or nucleus was Apparently iio denser, and certainly W brighter, than the fan-liko streamers proceeding from it, which were many millions of miles in length, and composed 'of so attenuated a material that stars of the second or third magnitude could easily >be seen through it. Hence, did such a body come in contact with the earth in the course of its ertatio career, tho probability is that we would Know nothing' about it,*as has already been the case with respect to another comet, or, one might say, other comets. Flammarion, no doubt, will shortly tell us moro. about it. He is a most able man, but prone to bo sensational, and much liking to startle the world' with astronomical wonders. Not so long since a cable from Paris announced that Flammorion wa3 now absolutely confident that tho planet Mara was inhabited by human beings. Ho arrived at the conclusion from a careful study of tho canals- of Mars, which ho took to be engineering works constructed by men even superior to our engineers. And bo they must be, considering that these canals were many thousands of miles in length, and from fifteen to fifty-six miles wide. These canals were first seen and reported on by an Italian observer named Scliiaparelli ; his map showing these works of human skill may be seen in the Parliamentary Library. The chart is grossed in all directions by these lines, just as -a blackboard ia when used to illustrate one of the moro abstruse propositions of Kuclid. At tho famous Lick Observatory, also, thesd extraordinary engineering workß were seen and set forth on the as" trciiomical chart of tho diso of Man. Unfortunately, when these two maps came to be compared they were found to bo hopelessly divergent! Not a single canal marked on one chart tallied with a canal on (he other, and hs nearly all the astronomers of this age failed to sco any markings indicating canals at all, the position had to bo given up as untenable; And now one learns from tho North. American Review that the allegcd'lincs indicating atnizing engineering works are mere optical illusions, having no existence) whatever. So ono has to admire Flammorion, but to take him cum grano, etc., all the time.— l am, etc., RICHARDSON RAE. v WellingtoD^Spta J.iUjr t 19W.