NOTES. 



American Almanac for 1844. p. 42. External or physiognomic resemblances, 

 the uncertainty of which had, however, been pointed out so long ago as by 

 Seneca in his Nat. Quaest. lib. vii. cap. 11 and 17, had at first given occa- 

 sion to this comet being supposed to be identical with those of 1668 and 1689. 

 (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 144 and 410, Ann. 62 ; Engl. ed. p. 129 and xxxiii. 

 Note 92 : and Galle, in " Olbers Cometenbahnen," No. 42 and 50.) Bogus- 

 lawski (Sehurn. Astr. Nachr. No. 545, S. 272) believed, on the other hand, 

 that the earlier appearances of this comet, assigning to it a period of revo- 

 lution of 147 years, had been those of 1695, 1548, and 1401 : he even calls 

 it " the comet of Aristotle," because he traces it back to 371 B.C., and, with 

 the talented Hellenist, Thiersch, of Munich, considers it to be the comet men- 

 tioned in the Meteorol. of Aristotle, Book i. cap. 6. I would remark, how- 

 ever, that the name " Comet of Aristotle" is liable to much uncertainty in 

 respect to its signification. If the comet which Aristotle makes to have dis- 

 appeared in the constellation of Orion, and which he connects with the earth- 

 quake in Achaia, be meant, it must not be forgotten that this comet is stated 

 by Calisthcnes to have appeared before, by Diodorus after, and by Aristotle 

 at the time of, the earthquake. The 6th and 8th chapters of Aristotle's 

 Meteorology treat of four comets, the epochs of whose appearance are indi- 

 cated by references to the Archons at Athens, and to different calamitous events. 

 He there mentions successively the " western" comet, which appeared at the 

 time of the great earthquake in Achaia, with which great inundations were 

 connected (cap. 6, 8) ; then the comet which appeared in the time of the 

 Archon Eucles, the sou of Molon (cap. 6, 10) ; and subsequently the Sta- 

 girite speaks again of the western comet, that of the great earthquake, and 

 names in connection with it the Archon Asteus, a name which incorrect 

 readings have converted into Aristseus, and who, on that account, Pingre, in 

 his Cometographie, erroneously regards as the same person as Aristhenes or 

 Alcisthenes. The lustre of this comet of Asteus extended over a third part of 

 the heavens : its tail, therefore, which was called " the way" (M6s), was 60 in 

 length. It stretched to the neighbourhood of Orion, where it was dissolved. 

 In cap. 7, 9, mention is made of the comet which appeared simultaneously 

 with the celebrated fall of a meteoric stone at ^Egos Potamoi (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 

 124, 397., and 407 ; Engl. ed. p. 109, xxiii. and xxxi. Note 87), and which 

 cannot well be a mere confusion with the aerolite-cloud described by Damachos 

 as having shone and sent forth shooting stars during a period of 70 days. 

 Lastly, Aristotle names, in cap. 7, 10, a comet which was seen under the 

 Archon Nicomachus, and to which a tempest at Corinth was ascribed. These 



