210 COSMOS. 



(0 1609 . 



(u) 1670 . .in Vulpes. 



(v) 1848 . . in Ophiuchus. 



EXPLANATORY REMARKS. 



(a) This star first appeared in July, 134 years before our 

 era. We have taken it from the Chinese Records of Ma- 

 tuan-lin, for the translation of which we are indebted to the 

 learned linguist Edward Biot (Connaissance des Temps pour 

 Van 1846, p. 61). Its place was between /3 and p of Scorpio. 

 Among the extraordinary foreign-looking stars of these records, 

 called also guest-stars, (etoiles hotes, "Ke-sing," strangers of a 

 singular aspect,) which are distinguished by the observers 

 from comets with tails, fixed new stars and advancing tail-less 

 comets are 'certainly sometimes mixed up. But in the record 

 of their motion (Ke-sing of 1092, 1181, and 1458), and in 

 the absence of any such record, as also in the occasional 

 addition, " the Ke-sing dissolved" (disappeared), there is 

 contained, if not an infallible, yet a very important criterion. 

 Besides, we must bear in mind that the light of the nu- 

 cleus of all comets, whether with or without tails, is dull, 

 never scintillates, and exhibits only a mild radiance, while 

 the luminous intensity of what the Chinese call extraor- 

 dinary ( stranger ) stars, has been compared to that of 

 Venus, a circumstance totally at variance with the na- 

 ture of comets in general, and especially of those with- 

 out tails. The star which appeared in 134 B.C., under the 

 old Han dynasty, may, as Sir John Herschel remarks, have 

 been the new star of Hipparchus, w^hich, according to the 

 statement of Pliny, induced him to commence his catalogue 

 of the stars. Delambre twice calls this statement a fiction, 

 " une historiette." (Hist, de lAstr. anc.', t. i. p. 290 ; and 

 Hist, de VAstr. mod., t. i. p. 186.) Since, according to 

 the express statement of Ptolemy. (Almag.. vii. p. 2, 13 

 Halma), the catalogue of Hipparchus belongs to the year 

 128 B.C., and Hipparchus (as I have already remarked else- 

 where) carried on his observations in Rhodes (and perhaps 

 also in Alexandria), from 162 to 127 B.C., there is nothing 

 irreconcilable with this conjecture. It is very probable that 

 the great Nicean astronomer had pursued his observations for 



