The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1910. THE FEAR OF COMETS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14209, 25 May 1910, Page 4

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1910. THE FEAR OF COMETS.

Until the comet was safely past tha earth on its human-age-long journey, it would have been injudicious to publish anything that might possibly alarm tho lew people who still 'remain amongst us (one hears of such), upon whom the knowledge and the precision of modern astronomical science has less e ect than the latent instinctive fear <>t (omets. This four has come down to the present day from some far di.s:mt past, when Something happened to the earth that scared the whole of earth's population out of its seven senses, and that Something— rightly or wrongly—in all probability wrongly "'as attributed to some abnormality tl, , e It must have happened a very long time ago, beyond lie hist,,no period, just doubtfully " ! t.mi the legendary period of tha most advanced races, 0,1 the border »'« <>f myth and legend even for tha iest of these, within tho mythical ngs -<»■ tho rest of the world. And because it is so far away in time, wa may conclude that it. was something

+b« <v 4. C 1 ' seeln e that effect of the horror it occasioned I , " ot . J ' fit <hed <>"t from the deepaHo ,nSt,nCtS ° f t] '° rnce -' Soinr • o.vance ,nu st be made for th<vprob* lihtj that the occurrence—whatever il was affrighted the human race wher knowledge of natural phenomena was very much less than that of tho modern fourth or oven third standar schoolboy; and further allowance ">nst he made too, for the strange persistence of ancient instincts; such as

explains the bash horse's cnpttcit for uc "1112 that "this is a memorysurvival of a long past age when its ancestors learned how to throw hungry cannvora off its back. (History recalls no tunc when the ancestors of our horses had to do tin's.) Comets 1 showers of meteors generally causa scares amongst uneducated peoples. JM-en m historically modern times, t comets have caused European peoples | at large to prepare for the "end of , xlm world.- A few days ago tlie Chnstchurch "Press" mentioned a few » cases. A special case is that of the year 1000 A.D. (a little before the Xorman Conquest of England) when a M'avo of fanatic fear spread over the Continent, because it had been taught that Satan, chained for 1000 years, was to break loose again and devastate the earth; and when a comet appeared (jl?.-->t in the nick of time) there was tha "sign from Heaven-"' that certified the prognostication. "All work ceased, the peasants abandoned their crops, and the nobles took refuge in the monasteries." Later, in 1528, another scare brought Europe to a standstill, and fear of another Deluge set people to building Arks everywhere. A few years ago, a magnificent display of shooting stars (as we would regard it) seen one night over eastern Russia, throw the ignorant people of some villages into such frenzied fear of the end of the world " that (as recorded in the newspapers of the time.) they slew their infants to save them 11 om the horrors of the disaster thev fancied was impending. Quite in line ivith this distressing story, though it is amusing instead of distressing, was the cablegram received a short tinn ago, that some villagers in Hungary, fearing the end of the world at sight of Halloy's comet, brought out all their food to the village green, and had an orgy of feeding. They were instiuc* tively preparing; for the coming day when they would be too much disturbed to eat. This sort of thingexcept in the individual case amongst ourselves —is not to be laughed at: it is something to be explained ; and tha explanation seems to be that at somi long-past time Something happened, which at the time was associated witL something queer in the heavens. "\Y< | have at hand an elaborate book by an J American, Ignatius Donnelly, who enI deavoured therein to prove that the earth was once devastated by collision | with a comet. A tyro in geology could confute his conclusion; but tha quantity and variety of mythical evidence amassed to prove his cometcollision theory, while not proving that, jiroves that the human race does really possess memories of some kind of universal disaster, associated with some kind of strange appearances overhead—perhaps in tho celestial regions, perhaps within the atmosphere, which foi the early races of mankind were confounded. It must have been something really extraordinary, terrible, devastating, for the shock it gave th« people of its day has evidently remained even more securely registered in the instincts of the race than in its traditions. But Mr Donnelly's i-fl'oi't in nrove that it was caused by a comet, is distinctly a failure.