ON THE COMET OF 1843. 87 
explained. The series of observations of the comet is far too short to enable 
us to derive from it a calculation on the ellipticity of the orbit. Some attempts 
have given negative results, and even a hyperbola, which is however less 
probable than that the observations were imperfect. The review would have 
promised better success, if there had been any comets in former days whose 
appearances resembled this, since this inquiry is extremely limited, from 
unavoidable reasons. The principal are these :— 
The comet of 1843 is one of those whose visibility in broad daylight near 
the sun at the time of perihelion is incontestably proved. In ovr hemisphere 
it can never be seen near midnight, either before or after. Nor can it ever 
be seen to the north of the ecliptic ; and even in the south of the zodiac there 
are but few constellations in which it can rise above our horizon; only in 
ridanus, or in the feet of Cetus during the months of February and March; 
d afterwards in Corvus, and in Hydra during the months of October and 
November. 
Guided by these considerations, in the excellent ‘ Cometography ’ of Pingré 
we meet with the comet of 1695, seen in Brazil, in India, at Macao, and in the 
islands of St. Anne in America, pursuing its path through Corvus into Hydra. 
The magnificent tail upholds the supposition that the head was in the prin- 
cipal extremity. 
On the 7th of February 1106, a comet appeared in Palestine (and was after- 
wards seen in China) which occupied that part of the heavens in which the 
sun sets in winter. From it there proceeded a long whitish ray resembling 
a linen cloth, which came to an end below the constellation of Orion. 
Aristotle makes use of nearly the same words in describing (in his ‘ Meteor- 
ology’) the comet which appeared 371 years B.c. ‘In the severest part of 
the winter,” says he, “this prodigious star was seen to appear in the evening. 
It set soon after the sun; but its light extended something like an avenue 
of trees over a third of the heavens. It rose up to the belt of Orion and 
then disappeared.” Thus we have two striking portraits of the comet of 
1843 ; but resemblance alone decides nothing. 
OF the three comets here cited, only that of 1695 affords us details of its 
apparent path through the heavens. Three Jesuits, who it appears possessed 
astronomical knowledge,—Father Noel at Macao, Father Bouvet at Surat, 
and Father Jacob at All Saints’ Bay in Brazil,—give us a learned description 
of it according to the taste of their time; whilst an anonymous observer on 
one of the islands of St. Anne in America, carefully notes down five or six 
times, between the 2nd and 19th of November, those stars of Corvus and 
Hydra through which the head of the comet had continued its route. 
Pingré owns that he attempted in vain to combine these observations, 
in order to derive from them some approximation to the comet’s orbit ; and yet 
the whole of them, including the daily progress of the comet, are represented 
in the most satisfactory manner by the elements of the comet of 1843; that 
is, supposing the same distance of perihelion, the same longitude for the peri- 
helion and for the ascending node, and the same inclination, and admitting 
the 24th of October 1695 as the day of the perihelion passage. 
The elements of an entirely different orbit, caleulated by Mr. Burckhardt 
from the inedited observations of Mr. Delisle, do not give at all the same re- 
sults, and perhaps owe their existence to the same cause which M. Bessel has 
revealed in the ‘ Ast. Nach.’ of Schumacher. The details of my calculations 
will. soon appear in that work, and will prove the great probability of the 
assertion which, in the presence of this illustrious Association, I have today 
made for the first time. 
__» Meanwhile I may be permitted to draw the conclusion that the period of 
