BY JOHN TEBBUTT, JUN. 149 



on the 30th. He says, further : " the comet will traverse the 

 plane of the ecliptic on the llth September, at a point distant 

 rather more than two millions of miles from the earth's path." 

 Now, it will be remembered that, in my last paper, I stated that 

 the nearest approach of the comet to the earth's path had 

 occurred on the llth September, but that the distance between 

 the two orbits was rather more than half a million of miles. 

 This is about one-fourth of the distance which Mr. Hind gives. 

 It is, however, very probable that Mr. Hind's are only approxi- 

 mate results, based on a few observations taken at the comet's 

 first appearance : it is, of course, usual for astronomers to give 

 rough results at the beginning, to be gradually corrected from 

 future observations. I think, therefore, it will be found, when 

 more mature results reach us from Europe, that the comet 

 actually approached the earth's orbit much nearer than two 

 millions of miles. I speak thus confidently because the elements 

 which I have given satisfy pretty nearly observations extending 

 over six weeks. Further on I will give a comparison of the 

 parabola, with the results derived from observation. From the 

 meagre accounts that have reached us, it appears that the 

 phenomena mentioned in my last paper as attending the 

 comet were also observed in Europe during the month of 

 August. These phenomena are described as most extraordi- 

 nary, so we may expect some interesting information respect- 

 ing them by the next mail from Europe. There is a drawing 

 of the comet in the Illustrated London News of August IGth, 

 from which it will be seen that the comet in its general ap- 

 pearance resembled that of Halley, as figured by Struve on 

 October 8th, 1835. 



Since the last meeting of the Society I have slightly corrected 

 the elements contained in my former paper. My latest approxi- 

 mation, uncorrected for aberration and parallax, is as follows : 

 Perihelion passage, 1862, August 23rJ, '1340 Greenwich mean time. 



Perihelion distance 0.96290 



Distance of perihelion from ascending i Deg. min. sec. 

 node, according to the order of the signs J 20" 10 12 



Longitude of perihelion on orbit 344 23 48 i Mean equinox of 



Longitude of ascending node 137 13 36 ) 1st January, 1862. 



Inclination of orbit 66 9 36 



Motion, retrograde. 



