COMETARY INFLUENCES. 



aiid various as are the effects which the partisans of this theory are 

 disposed to ascribe to them, cases have been presented in which 

 the most ardent supporters of such a hypothesis are hard driven 

 to find a misfortune or a malady to visit even upon the most 

 formidable of the comets, and on the other hand, it is sometimes 

 difficult to find a comet on which to saddle some of the greatest 

 scourges which have visited our race. 



One of the largest and most remarkable comets of modern times 

 was that of 1680. It was also that which passed nearest to the 

 sun, and not very far from the earth. Nevertheless the partisans of 

 cometary influences have found it difficult to discover any calamity 

 to visit upon that body. There were no epidemic diseases, local 

 or general, to ascribe to it ; but Mr. Forster assigns it as the cause 

 of a cold winter, followed by a dry and warm summer, and some 

 remarkable meteors seen in Germany ! 



The year of the great plague of London (1665) was signalised 

 by a comet which appeared in the month of April, and to the 

 influence of which that visitation was, of course, ascribed. No 

 reasons, however, are given why London alone was obnoxious to 

 this malign influence, and why no similar effect was produced in 

 other European capitals, or even in other great towns of England, 

 nor even in many of the villages with which London is begirt. 



To this and all similar speculations it may be answered that, 

 admitting the possible influence of comets, their effect ought to be 

 general and not local. There can be no imaginable reason why 

 such a body should affect, in a special manner, one particular spot 

 upon the earth's surface, while the surrounding countries are 

 exempt from the like consequences of its influence. 



This is the conclusive answer to all the absurd speculations on 

 cometary influences which fill the elaborate treatises of Gregory, 

 Sydenham, Lubienetski, Forster, and others. Some of these 

 effects appear so ludicrous that it is difficult to quote them in any 

 serious discussion on a question of physical science. 



A great comet appeared in the heavens in 1668, which there is 

 some reason to suppose to be identical with the splendid object 

 which passed through the system in 1843. One of the advocates 

 of cometic influences discovered that the presence of this body in 

 1668 produced a remarkable epidemic among cats in Westphalia ! 

 We have not heard of any similar calamity in 1843. 



8. A comet, not very conspicuous either for magnitude or 

 brightness, passed near the earth in 1746. The destruction of the 

 cities of Lima and Callao by an earthquake is imputed to this 

 body, but no reason is assigned for the exemption of other cities 

 of the South American continent. 



9. To another comet is ascribed the destruction of a steeple- 

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