394 COMETS. 



pretended to have discovered. Six months 

 after this, DI-.HERSCHELL published a paper in 

 the Philosophical Transactions, which tended, 

 in a great measure, to confirm, by facts, the 

 deductions which, from hypothesis?, I had made. 

 Of those bodies which I was ignorantly taught 

 were limited by astronomers to nine, but 

 which J ventured to assert very generally 

 existed in the upper regions, Dr. Herschell 

 says, " Many of the operations of nature 

 are carried on in her great laboratory, in a 

 manner which we cannot comprehend ; but 

 now and then we see some of the tools, with 

 which she is at work. We need not won- 

 der that their construction should be so singu- 

 lar, as to induce us to confess our ignorance of 

 the method of employing them ; but we may be 

 assured, that they are not a mere lusus naturce. 

 I allude (the Doctor goes on to say) to the great 

 number of small telescopic Comets, that have 

 been observed ; and to the far greater number 

 still that are, probably, much too small to be 

 noticed by our most diligent searchers after 

 them. Those six, for instance, which my sister 

 has discovered, I can, from examination, af- 

 firm, had not the least appearance of anj r solid 

 nucleus, and seemed to be mere collections of 

 vapors, condensed about a centre. Five more, 

 that I have observed also, were nearly of the same 

 nature. This throws a mystery over their des- 



