386 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1885. 



Comet 1885 I : 

 =Cottiet'd 1884. 

 =Eiicke'8 Comet. 



Comet 1885 II : 

 = Comet a 1885. 

 = Barnard's Comet 



Eucke's comet, at this its twenty-third return, was 

 found by Tempel, at Arcetri, on December 13, 1884, 

 close to the place given by Backluud's ephemeris — a 

 faint nebulous mass without any defined nucleus. By the 1st of Febru- 

 ary a condensation, situated a little eccentrically, as in 1881, was seen, 

 and by the middlo of February the faint trace of a tail was visible. 

 Perihelion occurred on March 7. The comet showed quite a bright 

 banded spectrum, while the continuous spectrum of the nucleus was 

 made out only with considerable difficulty. 



A telegram was received on July 9, at Harvard 

 College observatory, from Prof. L. Swift, of 

 Eochester, announcing the discovery of a comet by 

 Prof. E. E. Barnard on the evening of July 7, at Vanderbilt University, 

 Nashville, Tenn. The position given was identical with a nebula, No. 

 4301, of HernclieVs General Catalogue, and the announcement dispatches 

 were delayed until the fact of the non-identity was established. The 

 comet was seen at Cambridge on the night of July 9. On the 11th 

 of July, as observed by Charlois, at Mce, it consisted of a nucleus 

 of the 105 magnitude, surrounded by a faint, irregular nebulosity 

 about l'*5 in diameter. Professor Young, observing with the ii3- 

 inch refractor at Princeton, describes the comet during July as about 

 three quarters of a minute of arc in diameter, somewhat elongated, 

 and much condensed in the center, though Avithout any true stellar 

 nucleus; no structure of jets or envelopes could be made out. There 

 was, however, a faint, slightly fan-shaped tail from 2'-5 to 4' long, di- 

 rected at a position angle of about 35°. Professor Young found the 

 spectrum almost continuous, the usual cometary bands being visible 

 only as three slight intensifications of brightness upon the uniform 

 background. A similar spectrum was observed at Nice. The comet 

 appears to have been seen as late as September 2. Several sets of ele- 

 ments have been computed; the peculiarity of the orbit, its great peri- 

 helion distance, being brought out by all. The perihelion distance, (2'5) 

 is greater than in the case of any other comet hitherto computed, except- 

 ing the extraordinary one of 1729, which did not approach the sun within 

 four times the earth's mean distance. A conjecture having been ex- 

 pressed by Faye and Krueger that the orbit might be elliptic, Dr. Lamp 

 computed elli^jtic element, and found a period of eighty-seven hundred 

 years, He remarks, however, that owing to the uncertainty in the single 

 observations employed, his results can hardly be considered as decisive, 

 and the orbit may yet turn out parabolic. The comet passed perihelion 

 in the early part of August, the several orbits thus far computed ranging 

 in this element from August 1 to 9. 



Discovered by W. K. Brooks, of Phelps, N. Y., 

 on August 31, 1885, and also, independently, by 

 A. A. Common, at Ealing, on September 4. Pro- 



Comet 1885 III ; 

 = Comet c 1885. 

 = Brooks's Comet, 



fessor Pickering, who obtained the first accurate position, Septem- 



