The Star. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1882.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4546, 18 November 1882, Page 2

The Star. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1882.

Thb Comit, we intimated— and a number of readers have already been good enough to remind us of the promise — would form the subject of another article. Our previous comment, it will be remembered, was to the effect that the most emphatic assertions of the " most eminent scientists " cannot always be unreservedly accepted. But that item of oometary intelligence whioh the mail brought us, nevertheless, involves momentous questions : — Will an enormous comet during the month of October next make a plunge into the sun? What will be the effect on the earth? These questions, according to the aforesaid intelligence, have been answered by the unqualified statement that suoh a plunge will assuredly be made, and that as a consequence any degree of either bodily or mental coolness will no longer be possible upon the surface of this planet. We may at once express our conviction that some of " tho most eminent scientists" have their imaginations in a sufficiently heated condition already. For "the faith that is in us" we are teady to advanoe reasons in plenty. It will, however, be readily understood that these could not possibly be stated within the limits of a single artiole ; and— acting upon the numerous requests made to ut— the subjeot will be further dealt with on one or two subsequent occasions. The great comet of 1882 was a surprise to astonomeri. They were delighted with the splendour so suddenly revealed on Sept. 18, but they were no less astonished. At that time the comet was visible in broad daylight, and " close to the sun." It travelled on, at the computed rate of about a million miles a day, whilst the astronomers were endeavouring to solve the riddle of its totally unexpected appearanoo. Eventually they agreed only upon two points : That the comet was receding from the snn, and that it was also reoeding from the earth. In order that our readers may dearly judge in how muoh the absurd prediction is to be relied upon, we will state tbe results of oertain observations. The speoial feature whioh observers had to watoh, was the exaot time of the comet's perihelion, that is to say, the precise moment at whioh it was passing ntareit to the sun. The Harvard professor states this nearest passage to have been made on August 80 ; whilst Lord Crawford, the Assistant-Superintendent at the Washington Naval Observatory, and others, fix the time more than a fortnight later ; and theßO last vary considerably in their computations. Bearing in mind the comet's rate of travelling, and the widely differing results of the recent observations, the utter absurdity of propheoying its plunge into the sun at a given time will be strikingly apparent. Bo far as we can gather, the startling theory whioh has been referred to, emanated from the Astronomer at the Dudley Observatory (America). He holds that this comet has appeared on two previous occasions, — in 1843 and 1880; that on those oooasions it grazed against the sun's atmosphere, and so had. its flight impeded ; and that this same oomet will return "in 1884, if not sooner." Into the sun it is — he believes — bound to go eventually. Professor Piazzi Smyth seems to have improved upon the Yankee notion. Dootors differ. So do Professors of Astronomy. For example: The Harvard University Professor does not think that the new comet is identical with that of 1880, or that it will return in 1884, or that it will fall into the sun. Another of the "eminent scientists " holds that this comet of 1880 has never been seen before, and that consequently nobody knows anythißg whatever about it. Doctors differ. Mathematical exactness is the first requirement for any astronomical statements j yet the observers differ strangely in their conclusions ; and they may all be wrong. Their work ought to teach them how very little they know. It ought to make them— if anything can do so— humbly cautiouß. When they forsake caution, they are themselves forsaken, and are neither more nor lesß than lunatics.