POET10N OF THE COSMOS. COMETS. 399 



122:2 to 1644 during the period of the dynasty of Ming. 

 I repeat here (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 389, Anm. 12 ; Engl. ed. 

 p. xvii. Note 42), that whilst from the middle of the 3d to 

 the end of the 14th century, comets have to be computed 

 exclusively from Chinese observations, the calculation of 

 Halley's comet at its appearance in 1456 is the first which has 

 been made exclusively from European observations : those of 

 Regiomontanus were, however, followed, on the return of 

 Halley's comet, by the very exact ones of Apianus, at Ingol- 

 stadt, in August of the year 1531. The appearance of a 

 superb comet which acquired celebrity by means of African 

 and Brazilian voyages of discovery, and which was called by 

 Italians " Signor Astone/' the great " Asia," belongs to the 

 intermediate date of May 1500 ( 65 ). By the similarity of the 

 elements, Laugier ( 651 ) recognised in the Chinese observations 

 a seventh appearance of Halley's comet (that of 1378) : the 

 third comet of 1840, discovered by Galle ( 652 ) on the 6th 

 of March, appears in the same way to be identical with that 

 of 1097. The Mexicans in their Year-books connected 

 events with comets and other celestial observations. It is a 

 curious fact that it is only in the Chinese Comet-Eegister 

 that I have been able to recognise, (as having been observed 

 in December of the same year), the comet of 1490, which I 

 discovered in Le Tellier's Mexican Manuscript, and figured 

 in my " Monumens des Peuples indigenes de FAmerique" 

 (653) 4 This comet had been entered by the Mexicans in their 

 register twenty-eight years before Cortes appeared for the 

 first time on the coast of Yera Cruz (Chalchiuheuecan). 



I have spoken in detail in the first volume of my work 

 (S. 106112 ; English edit. p. 9298), of the shape and 

 appearance of comets, of their variations of form, brightness 



