ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 311 



most remote is (sixty-five) Cybele. The orbit of Feronia is nearer to 

 Mars than to Cybele. The asteroid whose orbit has the least eccen- 

 tricity is Concordia, being 0.04 ; and that which has the greatest is 

 Polymnia, being 0.337; which is greater than that of any other 

 known planet. The asteroid whose orbit is least inclined to the 

 ecliptic is Massalia, inclination 41' ; that whose orbit is most in- 

 clined is Pallas, whose inclination is 34 42'. 



The method adopted by the German astronomers for determining 

 the magnitude of the asteroids is, by comparing their reflecting capac- 

 ities with that of other celestial bodies whose magnitudes are known. 

 This process gives to Maia (sixty-six), discovered by Mr. Tuttle, of 

 the Cambridge (Mass.) Observatory, a diameter of only 19.1 Eng- 

 lish miles, if its reflecting capacity is equal to that of Saturn or 

 Uranus, or 65.2 miles, if it reflects only the same proportion of inci- 

 dent light that the moon does. This circumstance also affords most 

 striking testimony to the excellence of the telescope that it is capable 

 of presenting to the eye and subjecting to measurement an object 

 of such minuteness. 



COMETS OF 1862. 



Four new comets have been discovered within the year, and two 

 of them were marked by features that give them considerable distinc- 

 tion among their fellows. Among the distinctions which the first 

 comet of the year enjoys are the geographical and historical circum- 

 stances of its earliest discovery at Athens by M. Schmidt, and of its 

 being the first physical discovery in the celestial spaces made there in 

 modern times. After an absence of two thousand years astronomy 

 returns to the land of Hellas, where its first theories were conceived 

 and its foundations laid by such illustrious cultivators as Thales, 

 Pythagoras, and Hipparchus. This comet was first detected on the 

 night of the 2d of July, in Cassiopeia ; and it had, at that time, 

 passed its perihelion ten days. It was visible to the naked eye for a 

 short time as a nebulosity, having the lustre of a star of the fourth 

 magnitude. It was remarkable for its great geocentric angular veloc- 

 ity, and its proximity to our globe, but few comets on record having 

 surpassed it in these circumstances. On the 4th of July it was only 

 nine millions of miles distant from the earth, and was then moving at 

 the rate of twenty-four degrees per diem, reduced to the arc of a 

 great circle. 



The second comet of 1862 was remarkable both for its brilliancy 

 and for its physical features. In these particulars it was surpassed 

 only by the great comets of Donati and that of 1861. It was first 

 discovered by Mr. Swift, an amateur astronomer at Marathon, Cort- 

 land County, New York, on the evening of July ISth^ and was sub- 

 sequently observed by Mr. Tuttle of the Cambridge Observatory, and 

 Mr. Simons of the Dudley Observatory, Albany; on the 18th, three 

 days later. The nucleus of this comet was estimated at about one 

 hundred thousand miles diameter ; and the tail must have been not 

 far from eighteen millions of miles in length, which is something longer 

 than that of the great comet of 1861, which stretched so far across 

 the heavens. This comet never came nearer the earth than thirty- 

 five millions of miles, which is a distance nearly three times as great 



