128 COSMOS. 



1661. The first observation of the phenomenon may have 

 been made two or three years prior to this period ; but not- 

 withstanding, the merit of having (in the spring of 1683) been 

 the first to investigate the phenomenon in all its relations in 

 space, is incontestably due to Dominicus Cassini. The light 

 which he saw at Bologna in 1668, and which was observed at 

 the same time in Persia by the celebrated traveller Chardin, 

 (the court astrologers of Ispahan called this light, which had 

 never before been observed, nyzek, a small lance), was not the 

 zodiacal light, as has often been asserted*, but the enormous 



annual temperatures, and of the retardation of the extremes of the effects 

 in meteorological processes. It is, however, to be regretted that our 

 Baconian-philosophy-loving author, who was Lord Henry Somerset's 

 chaplain, fell into the same error as Bernardin de St. Pierre, and re* 

 garded the Earth as elongated at the poles (see p. 148). At the first, 

 he believes that the Earth was spherical, but supposes that the uninter- 

 rupted and increasing addition of layers of ice at both poles has changed 

 its figure ; and that, as the ice is formed from water, the quantity of 

 that liquid is everywhere diminishing. 



,.* Dominicus Cassini (Mem. de I'Acad., t. viii. 1730, p. 188), and 

 Mairan (Aurore Bor., p. 16), have even maintained that the phenome- 

 non observed in Persia, in 1668, was the zodiacal light. Delambre 

 (Hist, de I'Astron. Moderne, t. ii. p. 742), in very decided terms, 

 ascribes the discovery of this light to the celebrated traveller, Chardin ; 

 but in the Couronnement dc Soliman, and in several passages of the 

 narrative of his travels (ed. de Langles, t. iv. p. 326 ; t. x. p. 97), he only 

 applies the term niazouk (nyzek) or " petite lance," to " the great and 

 famous comet which appeared over nearly the whole world in 1668, and 

 whose head was so hidden in the west that it could not be perceived in 

 the horizon of Ispahan" (Atlas du Voyage de Chardin, Tab. iv. ; from 

 the observations at Schiraz). The head or nucleus of the comet was, 

 however, visible in the Brazils and in India (Pingre, Cometogr., t. ii. 

 p. 22). Regarding the conjectured identity of the last great comet of 

 March, 1843, with this, which Cassini mistook for the zodiacal light, see 

 Schum., Aatr. Nachr., 1843, No. 476 and 480. In Persian, the term 

 "nlzehi ateschfn" (fiery spears or lances), is also applied to the rays of 

 the rising or setting sun, in the same way as " nayazik," according to 

 Freytag's Arabic Lexicon, signifies " stellas cadentes." The comparison 

 of comets to lances and swords was, however, in the middle ages very 

 common in all languages. The great comet of 1500, which was visible 

 from April to June, was always termed by the Italian writers of that 

 time, il Sic/nor Astone (see my Examen Critique de I' Hist, de la Geo~ 

 graphic, t. v. p. 80). All the hypotheses that have been advanced to 

 show that Descartes (Cassini, p. 230 ; Mairan, p. 16), and even Kepler 

 (Delambre, t. i. p. 601), were acquainted with the zodiacal light, appear 

 to me altogether untenable. Descartes (Principes, iii. art. 136, 137), 



