es oS ae 
The Great Comet of 1861. 265 
which on account of the direction of the time of vision must 
have been out of the plane of the orbit. That its entire breadth 
should have been out of this plane, as it seems to have been 
near « Lyre, is indeed a most remarkable feature and very im- 
rtant in its bearing upon the theory of the forces concerned 
In producing it. At later dates, as we have remarked in a pre- 
vious notice, the tortuous path of the ray was obvious. 
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 8, 1861. 
Cambridge, August 8th. 
P. S.—A letter of the date June 17, received from Dr. Moesta 
of the National Observatory, Santiago, Chili, announces the ap- 
pearance of “a brilliant comet” early in the month. Its posi- 
tion and motion agree with the ephemeris communicated in a 
former part of this notice. We extract the following observa- 
tions: 
Mean time Santiago. a a) 
1861, June 10, 18h198m26s1 4h3m52892 —27°51’ 88 
12, 17 46 1674-° 4.65 6°17 ~29 47 14 ‘7 
; Cambridge, August 10th. 
_ Mr. Safford’s latest elements represent the Santiago observa- 
tions as follows :— 
comp.—obs. 
Aa 
1861, June 10, - ~ 36”-0 422"9 
12, —15°7 Pe Ta 
There can not therefore be any considerable deviation of the 
orbit from a parabola. me : 
The tail of the comet was seen 40° long by Liais at Rio Ja- 
neiro on the 14th of June. 
5. Additional Observations at the U. S. Naval Observatory, Washington. 
Communicated by Lt. J. M. Griutss, Ue 2G 
on attempting to compute an orbit for the comet, Prof. 
, Sora 
Hubbard found it impossible to represent the observed path by 
based _up ined by 
Mr. Ferguson on the 2d, 8th, and 17th of July. They give for 
the middle date the values 4/=—0'33, 4b=—0'"16. 
Time of perihelion passage, 1861, June 11.85294. Wash. M. T, 
Long. of perihelion, 249° 44! 44/58 M. equinox, 
«” « node, 278 59 49 °72{ 1861-0 
a ‘8 
Excentricity, 1:0265470 
Perilielion distance, 0°7453901 
* From Lt, Gilliss’ paper, to appear in full in our next issue. 
Ax. Jour. Sc1.—Sxcoxp SeRms, Vou. XXXII, No. 9%.—Sepr., 1861. 
34 
