COMETS. 539 



cessive months (1840) Galle discovered 3 new comets; from 

 1764 to 1798, Messier discovered 12; from 1801 to 1827, 

 Pons discovered 27. Thus Kepler's expression as to the 

 number of comets in the universe appears to hold good : ut 

 pisces in oceano. 



Of not less importance is the careful catalogue of comets 

 which have appeared in China, and which Edward Biot has 

 made known from the collection of Ma-tuan-lin. It reaches 

 back beyond the foundation of the Ionic school of Thales 

 and the Lydian Alyattes ; and comprises, in two sections, the 

 place of the comets from 613 years before our own era until 

 1222 years afterwards, and then from 1222 to 1644, the 

 period in which the dynasty of Ming ruled. I repeat here 

 (see Cosmos, vol. i.p. 84), that while from the middle of the 

 third to the end of the fourteenth century it was necessary to 

 calculate comets exclusively from the Chinese observations, 

 the calculation of Halley's Comet, on its appearance in the 

 year 1456, was the first calculation which was made from 

 altogether European observations, those of Regiomontanus. 

 These latter were again followed by the very accurate obser- 

 vations of Apianus at Ingoldstadt, upon the occasion of the 

 reappearance of Halley's Comet in August of the year 1531. 

 In the interval (May, 1500), appeared a magnificently bril- 

 liant comet, 6 rendered famous by African and Brazilian travels 



Of the 28 Comets visible to the naked eye which are here 

 enumerated in the sixteenth century (the epoch of Apianus, 

 Girolamo Fracastoro, Landgravine William IV. of Hesse, 

 Mastlin and Tycho) 10 were described by Pingre, namely, 

 those of 1500/1505, 1506, 1512, 1514, 1516, 1518, 1521, 

 1522, and 1530; further the Comets of 1531, 1532, 1533, 

 1556, 1558, 1569, 1577, 1580, 1582, 1585, 1590, 1593, and 

 1596. 



6 This is the "evil-disposed" comet to which was ascribed 

 the death of the celebrated Portuguese discoverer Bartho- 



