99 
to insure its discovery at as early a date as possible, and had 
succeeded in obtaining an orbit decidedly better than San- 
TINI's, which was the best existing. But the discovery of 
the comet rendered the publication of this ephemeris un- 
necessary. 
On the 26th August, 1852, Father Sreccut, at Rome, 
while searching for”Biela’s comet in the neighborhood of the 
place indicated by SantTrni’s ephemeris, discovered a very 
faint nebulous comet somewhat more than 43° from the place 
predicted for Biela’s, and was able to fix its position with great 
accuracy by its transit over a small star of the 9.10 magni- 
tude, which it covered at one time so centrally that the comet 
could only be recognized by the circumstance that the star 
seemed enveloped in a faint nebulosity. “I do not know,” 
he adds, “ whether this is a new comet or a portion of Biela’s 
which was divided in the beginning of 1846.” 
There seemed but little room for reasonable doubt that this 
was really. Biela’s comet, or one of its component parts ; since 
its position, though varying from the ephemeris, was nearly 
in the same orbit, and the amount and direction of its motion 
Were what might have been expected. But all doubt was 
removed three weeks later, when Professor Seccut detected 
the other portion of the comet, following its predecessor by 
about half a degree of right-ascension, and about half a degree 
farther south, and fainter even than the other. Owing to 
this extreme faintness of both portions, observations could 
Only be continued for a little more than ten days after the 
discovery of the second component. The last return to 
Perihelion took place in 1859, but the position of the comet 
Was so unfavorable, that although ephemerides prepared by 
three independent computers, one of them Hupparp himself, 
agreed very closely, and the most powerful telescopes of the 
world were occupied in the search, the comet was not seen. 
