ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 411 



On further search, the following statements were found, which may per- 

 haps bear on the case. Flaugergues mentions (De Zach: Corresp. Astron., 

 vol. 13, p. 17, 1825) that Pastorff saw two remarkable spots on the sun, Oct. 

 23, 1822, and also spots, July 24 and 25, 1823. Gibers (in Tilloch's Phil. Mag., 

 vol. 57, p. 444, 1821) cites Gruithuisen's observations of three solar spots, 

 June 20, 1819, viz., one near the middle of the sun, and two small ones without 

 nebulosity near the western limb. 



M. Leverrier's new Tables seemed (by the Report made to the French 

 Academy, Aug. 4, 1845, C. R. 21 : 316) to show that Mercury suffered no un- 

 explained disturbance. Nevertheless, in the hope of finding this presumed 

 planet, I undertook, in the year 1847, in conjunction with Mr. Francis Brad- 

 ley, to observe the sun's disk twice a day when practicable, and also to ex- 

 plore the neighborhood of the sun with a telescope, armed in front with a 

 long pasteboard tube blackened inside. These efforts, made with an instru- 

 ment badly mounted, in an inconvenient place, proved fruitless, and were 

 finally given up on account of the pressure of other work. Such observa- 

 tions ought to be resumed by those who can command suitable means. The 

 fact that for twenty years past no such bodies as those seen by Pastorff have 

 been detected by the numerous observers of solar spots, may perhaps be due 

 to the large inclination of the planet's orbit. 



OBSERVATIONS ON BIELA'S COMET. 



This comet was discovered to be periodical by M. Biela, in 1826 ; it re- 

 volves about the sun in six and three-fourths years, or two thousand four 

 hundred and ten days, in a very eccentric orbit, which, however, so nearly 

 intersects that of the earth, that at the return, in November 1832, if the 

 earth had been one month in advance of its actual place, it would have 

 gone through the comet; otherwise, the comet, which is small and hardly 

 visible to the naked eye, was of little importance until its return, in the au- 

 tumn of 1845, in the December of which year its form gradually elongated; 

 and in the middle of January 1846, it actually separated into two comets, 

 each with a short tail and a nucleus, each of which was alternately brighter 

 than the other; moreover, the distance between them slowly but steadily in- 

 increased, so that when they wholly disappeared, in April, it had become 

 nearly as great as that from the earth to the moon. 



At the next return of the comet, in 1852, it was therefore an object of 

 great curiosity to astronomers, especially after it was ascertained that the 

 distance between the two parts had become about a million of miles, but 

 otherwise they had performed their long journey of nearly seven years 

 almost side by side. Another return of the comet has occurred during the 

 past year, its perihelion passage taking place on the 24th of May, at a dis- 

 tance of one hundred and sixty millions of miles from the earth. Unfortu- 

 nately, however, its distance and position, nearly in a line with the sun, were 

 unfavorable for observations on it, at any of the observatories of the north- 

 ern hemisphere. 



The following interesting communication from M. Faye, on the division of 

 this comet, has been recently made to the French Academy. 



M. Faye first examines whether this is the first occurrence of the kind 

 recorded in history, or whether a similar fact has been witnessed before. 

 Seneca, in his Qu<(-stiones Naturales (Lib. VII. , c. 86), mentions a case of the 

 kind recorded by Ephorus, a Greek historian, whose works are lost ; but he 



