306 Gilliss on the Physical Aspects of 
Its light was neither uniform nor constant. For the first 8° é 
or 10° from the nucleus the tail was remarkably brilliant, and 
then its light rapidly diminished in intensity until reaching its 
narrowest point, beyond which the gradation was almost insen- — 
sible. The constancy of the light near the nucleus was inter: . 
rupted at intervals by flashings or pulsations, closely resembling 
those of the aurora, and at these times it was remarked that the 
axis. The eastern wing was perhaps a little the longer of the 
2 
uly 8.—The nucleus was distinctly visible to the unassisted 
eye as early as 8 P. M., and as late as 4 10™ on the following 
r, 
In the field of the telescope used last night, (the comet seeker), 
by 9 o'clock it was a brilliant stellar point just north of 35 Urs 
Majoris. In the equatorial it was enlarged to 11'2, and fet 
evidently elongated in a line perpendicular to the direction © 
its motion. 
a 
than elliptical, but there was in its western half an irregular 
as though a segment had been cut from that wing. In the ear. 
part of the evening, the posterior boundary was curved on eae 
wing of the sector, its eastern half terminating in a sharp viata 
