Royal Astronomical Society. 471 



the position were found, the one at Vienna, mentioned in an Austrian 

 chronicle by EbendorfFer, the other at Rome, preserved in a manu- 

 script treatise on the comet of 1468, to which Pingre had access in 

 the Bibliotheque du Roi at Paris. The comet was in perihelion on 

 the 8th of June at 22'', Julian style. 



The preceding appearance was referred by Halley to 1380, but 

 M. Laugier has shown that it took place in the autumn of 1378, 

 under nearly the same circumstances as in 1835. The Chinese 

 observations fix the time of passage through perihelion on November 

 S'^ 18"'. (Conn, des Temps, 1846.) 



In a paper on the history of the comet of Halley, published in 

 the Comptes Rendus for 1846, July 27, M. Laugier has recognised 

 this body in 760 and 451. The elements calculated by Burckhardt 

 for the comet observed by the Chinese in 989 approached so close 

 to that of Halley's comet, that some suspicion of their identity has 

 been entertained. But I believe, with these exceptions, the returns 

 which I am about to mention as either certain or probable have not 

 been previously noticed. The valuable details existing in the annals 

 of China, and but recently known in Europe, enable us to trace 

 this famous comet with a high degree of probability to the year 1 1 

 before the Christian a?ra, — a most important circumstance, not only 

 as regards the history of this particular comet, but as bearing on 

 the constitution of these bodies in general. I shall merely state 

 here the results to which I have been led by a close examination of 

 the Comctographies and Chinese records, without extending this 

 notice to an inconvenient length by the insertion of details. The 

 data which I have had to work upon are found in the Cometo- 

 grapliies of Pingre, Hevelius and Lubienietski, Ma-tuoan-lin's cata- 

 logue of comets and extraordinary stars, and the other Chinese 

 authorities with which we are acquainted through the labours of 

 M. Edouard Biot. 



The comet of Halley having returned to its perihelion in 1378, 

 we may expect to find some mention of it about the year 1301 ; and 

 notwithstanding the anomalous character of the results obtained by 

 MM. Burckhardt and Laugier for the first comet of that year, I 

 am pretty well convinced it was no other than the comet of Halley. 

 The Chinese account, which is tolerably definite, is exceedingly well 

 represented by the elements of that body : assuming the perihelion 

 passage to have occurred on October 22^ 16^* Greenwich time, the 

 comet passed through Gemini, south of Ursa Major, and finally 

 traversed Serpens and Ophiuchus, being lost in the twilight at the 

 end of October or beginning of November. There is one European 

 account, however, which is not so easily reconciled with this sup- 

 position. It is that of Friar Giles, whose description has led 

 M. Laugier to an orbit diflfering considerably in the position of the 

 line of nodes from that of Halley's comet. Now had this Friar 

 Giles established for himself a reputation as an exact and con- 

 sistent recorder of facts, we might justly entertain serious doubts as 

 to the identity of the comet of 1301 with Halley's; but in his 

 account of another comet (that of 1264) he contradicts himself so 



