Nov. 2, 1882 | 
NATURE 5 
clear of the head. The only other alteration I should desire 
would be the strengthening of the brightness all along the 
middle or axis of the tail, and the smoothing away of all other 
features such as now seem indicated in the body of it. Trivial 
as these changes may seem, the ultimate value of the drawing, 
if it should ever have any, must depend on its accuracy. The 
feebleness of the feature which attracted my attention may at 
the same time be inferred from its absence in the adjoining con- 
temporaneous sketch accompanying Mr. Seabroke’s letter, 
while its reality is proved by the descriptions in the two letters 
which follow. As regards the ‘‘rift ”’ or ‘‘shadow,” on which 
stress is laid by Mr. Williams at Cannes, one cannot help sus- 
pecting that this impression was the effect of contrast ody— 
contrast -etween the complete absence of tail in that quarter, 
and the unrecognised presence of exceedingly feeble luminosity 
due to the extension and diffusion of cometic matter roundabout. 
It would require very strong evidence indeed to establish the 
real presence of shadow in the ordinary sense of that term. 
One other point deserves notice, You have three contempo- 
raneous accounts, from Rugby, Hawkhurst (Kent), and Chelten- 
ham, all referring to the morning of October 23. Considering 
how rude and unsettled the weather has been for weeks past, 
so extensive a clearance was rather remarkable. 
The brightness of this comet’s tail may be inferred from an 
observation which I made during the current week, and which 
will perhaps excite as much surprise, if not incredulity, in 
others as it did inme. Sunday night was clear and bright, with 
a moon four days past the full. I was at an hotel in London, 
and on the stroke of three I stole into a vacant room in the third 
floor, the window of which looked south-east. Here I stood 
for a full hour looking for the comet, scarcely able to credit my 
senses, as the morning drew on without my seeing it. With 
the naked eye I could see stars of the 5th, and with a bino- 
cular, stars in Hydra of the 7th or even 8th magnitude ; but 
no comet. At first I was uncertain, for this very reason, as to 
the identity of a Hydre, although if I had not been seeing the 
comet flaring below it so frequently during the last three or four 
weeks, no such doubt would have occurred to me. At last, as 
all the small stars of Hydra gradually settled themselves in my 
recollection in their right places, and I knew exactly where the 
whole length of the comet mws¢ be, and the whole being then 
well above the opposite roof, I fancied at times that I could 
make out a faint illumination in the proper place ; but not even 
then, with the binocular, could I find the head; nor eculd J, 
without previous knowledge, have been able to testify confidently 
to the presence of the tail. 
I regret that I cannot condense this account without sacri- 
ficing some of the conditions which help to make so strange a 
disappearance credible. If anyone had told me on the 23rd 
that the object I was then drawing would be invisible to me a 
week later, in London, Ay reason of moonlight only—for the 
visibility of small stars proves the clearness of the atmosphere— 
how could I have credited it? I feel, therefore, that I cannot 
expect to be, believed unless the whole circumstances are told, 
even though they betray my uncertainty about stel.ar conSgura- 
tions when deprived of the aid of a map. J. HERSCHEL 
On Wednesday, the 25th instant, at 6.10 a.m., Mr. Hodges 
and I again obtained two measures of position of the nucleus 
with the equatorial, after correcting for instrumental errors and 
refraction, the mean of the readings comes out R.A. 10h, 6m, 
48s., Dec. 17° 2’ 55’. But owing to flexwe of the instrument 
and to the fact that the circles read only to 20’ and 2s. respec- 
tively, these figures are open to correction. Daylight, with a 
little haze, had so far advanced when the measures were com 
pleted, that only the nucleus was distinguishable in the tele- 
scope; but with the filar micrometer I measured its length ; the 
mean of two readings came out to 41’°5, but owing to the gradual 
shading off of the nucleus, one’s readings might vary is! 
according fo its assumed limits, The width I made about 10”, 
I was rather surprised at these results, as I had estimated its 
length two days before at about 10” only ; but 1 had then used 
‘an eye-piece to which I am not accustomed, and my estimate 
was probably anerror. The position angle of the major axis of 
the nucleus was 108° 7’. 
Though the comet was fainter by reason of the bright moon, 
still we could trace the tail as far as on Monday, the 23rd. 
We viewed the comet at 5 a.m., but owing to buildings in the 
line of sight, we got no reliable readings until 6 a.m. 
In my sketch of the nucleus in your last issue, the engraver 
has made it round, with a fainter elongation, It appeared of 
nearly the same brightness throughout. Gro, M. SEABROKE 
Temple Observatory, Rugby, October 30 
I sEND herewith two sketches of the comet made by me on 
the mornings of October 23 and 31, and a few brief particulars 
which may be of some value. 
October 23, 1882, at 4.30 a.m., the first sketch was made, 
At 4 0’clock the atmosphere was exceptionally clear, and the 
sky continued cloudless until 5 o'clock, when a few light clouds 
appeared. The comet was not brilliant, although clearly seen. 
Nucleus with coma presented an indistinctly outlined disc a few 
de rees above the horizon, and obliquely upwards was a tail 
which stretched more than 15° across the sky. I compared the 
extent of tail at the time with the distance between a and B 
Orionis, and the tail had decidedly the best of it. Wailst 
glancing from the comet to Orion, I saw in the intervening sky- 
space, in little over three minutes, no less than five meteors, one 
of which left a long luminous trail visible several seconds. The 
extremity of the tail was broad. Its wsder boundary was a well- 
defmed line about 40° from the horizontal, and was slightly 
convex downwards, The wffer boundary was about 45° from 
the horizontal, was nearly straight, but very ill-defined, the light + 
fading away into darkness very gradually upwards. The fan- 
ning cut of the tail was very rapid towards the far end. The 
termination was somewhat fishtail shaped, since there was cen- 
trally a deepish concavity between the extreme limits, whick 
projected horn-like. The light of the tail was broken into two 
unequal areas by an obscure streak. The inclosed lower area 
was the smaller and decidedly brighter, and on its lower side 
contained a still brighter area, that, starting from the upper 
part of the coma, gradually passed into the lower boundary. 
October 31, 1882, at 5.30 a.m., the second sketch was made. 
The atmosphere was again very clear, but the moon’s light 
dimmed the comet greatly, and exactly at 6 o’clock it and the 
coming dawn rendered it indistinguishable. The naked eye 
could distinguish none of the features observed on the 23rd, but 
the general outline had somewhat changed, and the comet had 
changed its position relatively to the stars, ARTHUR WATTS 
Manor House, Shincliffe, Durham, October 31 
May I beg the readers of NATURE, who possess good 1rea-~ 
sures of the course of the great comet, kindly to publish them 
in NaruRE? I would also be very much obliged for good 
measures of the distances of different envelopes of the head 
from the nucleus. The measures are desirable in two directions 
—towards the sun, and perpendicularly to this direction. Of the 
greatest scientific interest wou'd be a complete series of measures 
during the whole period of visibility of the comet, and especially 
in the first and last days of this pericd. B. 
“The Burman” 
Mr. E. B. Tytor, in his review of ‘‘The Burman” in 
NATURE (vol. xxvi. p. 593), has fallen into an error which it 
may be well to correct. says that the tattooing on the body 
of the ‘‘ Greek nobleman,” Georgios Konstantinos, ‘‘ was evi- 
dently done by Burmese tattooers, and is a masterpiece of their 
unpleasant craft.” ‘This is a mistake into which even a man 
who had seen many specimens of Burmese tattooing, might fall. 
But it could never be made by a Burman. ‘The general resem- 
blance to the decorations on the Burman’s thighs is close enough, 
but each separate figure, when done by the Burmese Sayah, is 
surrounded by a border of Burmese letters, in many cases as a 
mere ornament, but in not a few with a special cabalistic mean- 
ing. Still, however blurred with age, they can always be recog- 
ni:ed as Burmese characters. I went down and examined the 
“tattooed nobleman,” which he was good-natured enough to 
allow me to do very closely, and the result was to convince me 
that it was no native of Burma who so cruelly victimised the 
poor man, ‘The frames of the figures might have been letter=, 
but if so, they were of some language with which I am unac- 
quainted. Moreover, many of the figures themselves were such 
as a Burman Sayah never uses ; such as especially the birds and 
serpentine creatures, while the elephants were of a very inferior 
character. The Beeloos (ogres) and Kyah-Beeloos (tiger-ogres), 
moreover, which appear on every Burman’s legs, were absent, 
and, most conclusive of all, there was not a single inn, not one 
cabalistic square. No Say-Sayah I ever knew would have had 
self-control enough to have omitted thee signs of his wisdom 
in magic. Mr. Tylor says the story of Konstantinos is ‘‘ mostly 
