138 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLCGICAL PORTION 



Elucidatory Notices of the above Temporary Stars. 



a. "Which first appeared between /3 and p Scorpii, in 

 the month of July, 134 years before our Era, is recorded 

 in the Chinese Notices of Ma-tuan-lin, for the knowledge 

 of which we are indebted to the philological learning of 

 Edouard Biot (Connaissance des Temps pour Fan 1846, 

 p. 61). The "extraordinary" stars of "strange or 

 foreign appearance" of these Chinese Notices, called also 

 "guest-stars" ("etoiles notes," "ke-sing," as it were 

 foreigners of strange physiognomy), and from which the ob- 

 servers themselves had distinguished and separated comets 

 with tails, included, it is true, some tail-less comets, as 

 well as non-moving new stars, properly so-called ; but an 

 important though not infallible criterion was implied 

 by the assignment of motion in some cases (ke-sing of 

 1092, 1181, and 1458), and its non-assignment in others, 

 as well as in the occasional addition of the remark 

 "the Ke-sing dissolved" (disappeared). We may also 

 recal here the faint, never sparkling, always mild light of 

 the heads of comets, ^whether with or without tails, 

 whereas the Chinese " extraordinary stars" are compared, 

 in respect to the intensity of their light, to Yenus, which 

 does not at all suit the character of comets, and more 

 especially of tail-less comets. The star we are now 

 speaking of (a, 134 B.C.), which appeared under the old 

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

 been the new star of Hipparchus, which, according to 

 Pliny's account, induced him to draw up his list of stars. 

 Delambre twice calls this account " a fable," " une 

 historiette" (Hist, de 1'Astr. anc. T. i. p. 290 ; and Hist. 



