340 



KNO\A^LEDGE 



[Psa 17, 1882. 



THE MENACING COMET. 



By the Editok.* 



SUPPOSING Mr. Proctor's farts to Ijc corroctly staUnl," 

 snys the Sprctalnr, " tlit'ro dors socm a roniarkalily 

 good cliancc tlint in 1H'J7 the sim may sud<lcnly Wri-uk out 

 into tli<! siuiip kiiul of inti^iisity of boat and liglit whicli 

 causfxJ the coiifla^^ratioii in the star in tho Northern Ci^own 

 in IKGG, wlicn for a day or two iUc. luiat and light (Mnittod 

 by it becanip suddenly many hundreds of times greater than 

 thoy wt.-re before." 'J'lie Spi'^hitor is exercised by the 

 inquiry whether the world's belief in science is quite so 

 genuine as it seems, seeing that " Mr. Proctor's warning 

 has not j'et caused the world to make any change in its 

 arrangenient.s." Without undertaking to say what cliang<! 

 the world should make in its arrangements if its end 

 were to come in a few years, I may remark that 

 my warning — such as it was — appeared in an Aus- 



Be the cauHe what it may, I find that T am generally 

 understood to have issued a prediction that, Komewhero 

 about the year 1807, this world, with all that it inherit, 

 shall be dis-solved by fervent heat. Ix-t us see what the 

 article referred to by the Sjn-rlnlor really says: — 



In its opening paragraph, I staU; that views advanced 

 respecting the comet by others, "not by fanciful theori.serg, 

 but bj' mathematicians of eminence, suggest the p08.siV)ility, 

 nay, even some di'gree of probability, that this comet may 

 bring danger to the solar .sy.'.tem." And I go on to say 

 that it is that posiibUitv which " I have to discuss." The 

 pos.sibility, even some degree of probaV)ility, that a comet 

 may bring danger — this possibility suggested by the 

 views of others, and to 1)3 discussed by me — does not, I 

 apprehend, amount to a definite statement on ray part that 

 there is " really a very considerable chance of a catastrophe 

 fifteen years hence, which may put an end to our earth 

 altogether." Let us, however, examine the article further. 



Fig. 1.— The il nacing Como 



tralian Review, and was not published in tliis hemi- 

 sphere until a very few weeks ago (the preface to 

 the volume is dated December, 18S1, and the tith'-page 

 bears the date 1882), so that the wonder rather should be 

 how my t<>rriblo prediction comes so soon to be frightening 

 fearful folk from their customary quietude. If it were 

 not that his Right Reverend Lordship the Bishop of Man- 

 chester had been chiefly instrumental in calling general 

 attention to i\w. prediction, the world might well imagine 

 that the scare was a well-designed puft' for my new volume, 

 in which case I might be an.vious to e.xplain that, accord- 

 ing to the terms between myself and Messrs. Chatto it 

 Windu.s, I could not possilily gain, and might conceivably 

 lose, by the i-apid sale of the work at this present time. 



• I should OHloom it a favour (though I think I might almost 

 claim it as a right) if those newspajjors who liave spread tho news 

 of my supposed prediction, would be good enough to cxfiMn that I 

 believe the world is more likely to last fifteen millions of years than 

 to be destroyed in fifteen. — R. A. Pboctou. 



I^go on to ilnw that the path of the comet of 1880 

 carried it singularly near to the sun. This, of course, is 



simply a scientific fact I next e.xplain that the observed 

 part of the track of the comet of 1880 coincided, or nearly 

 so, with that of the comet of 1843 ; but that whereas the 

 most trustworthy calculations of the orbit of the comet of 

 1843 assigned a period of about 17.') years, the observed 

 period of its last circuit — if that object and the comet of 

 1880 are really identical — was only 37 years. This 

 part of the inquiry is more theoretical than the former. 

 Still, tho evidence is such as to make it highly probable 

 that the comet of 1S80 really is one and the same a.s the 

 comet of 1843, and that there really has been a diminution 

 of the period of revolution from more than a hundred to 

 less than forty years. 



It is towards the close of this part of the inquiry that 

 the anticipation of the comet's return in 1897 is referred 

 to. As presented by the Spii-lator and the Bishop of 

 Manchester, this might be supj)osetl to be such a prediction 



