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Wegnern has commissioned Professor Simson* to 

 express to me a wish that I would cause a notice, 

 with reference to the picture, to appear in the public 

 prints. I declared myself opposed to that course, 

 partly from the reasons I have before given you, 

 and partly because such notice would come more 

 appropriately after the picture had been received. 

 Should this arrival happen when I no longer have the 

 power to write, Simson knows what the notice should 

 contain, to be in accordance with my wish. 



Oh ! how I long for once to gaze upon the beauteous 

 sight which Biela's Comet now presents ! Wichmann, 

 here, did not observe anything of it on the llth of 

 January. The cloudy sky was perhaps the cause 

 of it ; but on the 1 5th he clearly saw both heads 

 of the comet. Next day he gave me an account 

 of it by word of mouth, but I could gather no clear 

 notion on the subject believed, indeed, that what he 

 called a second comet's head was only an accumulation 

 of nebulae, such as other comets, too, have already ex- 

 hibited in greater or smaller distance from the real 

 head. I charged him at his next observation to make 

 as true a sketch of it as he could, and let me have it. 

 The state of the sky, and the frequently low positions 

 of the Comet, delayed the drawing and measurements 

 till the 26th of January. Since that time, the second 

 head of the Comet has been observed with the greatest 



* Martin Eduard Simson was at this time not so important a person as 

 he subsequently became. He was a native of Konigsberg, born 1810 ; be- 

 came Professor of Jurisprudence, and in 1848 was elected a Deputy for Konigs- 

 berg in the Frankfort Parliament ; in this Assembly his influence was great, 

 and he acted successively as Secretary, Vice-President, and President. He 

 belongs in politics to the Gotha party that is, the Constitutionalists. At 

 the present time (1860), he is President of the Second Prussian Chamber. 

 TR. 



