762 Mr. Berhert Hall Turner [Feb. 18, 



England. Taking the cue from Halley's pride in an English 

 achievement, we may note that 1531 was the year in which 

 King Henry YIII. was declared Head of the English Church ; that 

 1607 saw tLe foundation of Jamestown, with which the history of 

 our lost colony the United States may be said to commence ; that 

 1758 saw the bkth of Nelson and 1759 the Battle of Quiberon Bay. 

 Mr. CrommeUn has called attention to the curious parallel between 

 the general elections in England in 1835 and 1910. The numbers 

 of the parties at the previous elections and after the election in the 

 comet year are curiously parallel : — 



1835 1910 



Liberals in previous .... 514 513 



Liberals after election . . . 385 397 



Opposition in previous . . . 144 157 



Opposition after election . . . 273 273 



The comet of 66 was perhaps the sword mentioned by Josephus 

 as hanging over Jerusalem for a whole year together, which he took 

 to be a warning of its impending destruction. 



The return of 1456 originated a false story (which grew with 

 age and will be hard to eradicate from the various literary channels 

 into which it has found its way) that Pope Calixtus III. had cursed 

 the comet. The true facts have been clearly stated several times, 

 and it has been shown that the legend has no foundation. A very 

 complete discussion of the matter by Father Stein of the Vatican 

 Observatory has just been published as No. II. (1909) of the 

 publications of the Specola Yaticana. With the original story must 

 go also the following "elaborate witticism" quoted by Newcomb 

 (in his " Reminiscences of an Astronomer," page 282) as due to 

 Professor J. C. Adams : " In view of the fact that the only human 

 being ever known to have been killed by a meteorite was a monk, 

 we may concede that after four hundred years the Pope's bull 

 against the comet has been justified by the discovery that comets 

 are made up of meteorites." 



As regards the present return, special efforts were made to detect 

 the comet as early as possible. Many photographic plates were 

 exposed in powerful telescopes during the winter 1908-9, but 

 without success. The first to announce an image of the comet was 

 Dr. Max Wolf, of Heidelberg, who found it on one of his plates 

 taken on September 11, 1909, close to the place predicted l)y Messrs. 

 Cowell and Grommelin. This practical proof of the correctness of 

 their work led almost immediately to the award to them of the prize 

 offered by the Astronomische Gesellschaft. 



Guided by the information afforded by the Heidelberg photo- 

 graph, a new search was made on plates previously taken at the 

 Royal Observatory, Oreenwich, and the tiny faint image of the 

 comet was then found on plates taken on September 9. Dr. Wolf 

 found images on his plates of August 28, and ultiniately the comet's 



