Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



237 



attractive force between the particles themselves. The most distant 

 parts will thus become separated from the nucleus, and move in 

 independent orbits. The motion of such meteoric matter will be in 

 the same plane with that of the parent comet — the orbit of the 

 former, however, being generally exterior to that of the latter. 

 The connexion recently discovered between comets and meteors, 

 and especially the fact that the period of the November group is 

 somewhat greater than that of the comet of 1866, are in striking 

 harmony with the views here presented. 



5. Owing to this loss of matter, periodic comets must become less 

 brilliant, other things being equal, at each successive return, a fact 

 observed in regard to the comets of Halley and Biela. 



6. The line of apsides of a large proportion of comets will be ap- 

 proximately coincident with the solar orbit. The point towards 

 which the sun is moving is in longitude about 260°. The quadrants 

 bisected by this point and that directly opposite extend from 215° 

 to 305°, and from 35° to 125°. The number of cometary perihelia 

 found in these quadrants up to July 1868 (periodic comets being 

 counted but once) was 159, or 62 per cent., in the other two qua- 

 drants 9S, or 38 per cent. 



This tendency of the perihelia to crowd together in two opposite 

 regions has been noticed by different writers. 



7. Comets whose positions before entering our system were very 

 remote from the solar orbit must have overtaken the sun in its pro- 

 gressive motion ; hence their perihelia must fall for the most part 

 in the vicinity of the point towards which the sun is moving ; and 

 they must in general have very small perihelion distances. Now, 

 what are the observed facts in regard to the longitudes of the peri- 

 helia of the comets which have approached within the least distance 

 of the sun's surface? But three have had a perihelion distance less 

 than O01. All these, it will be seen by the following Table, have 

 their perihelia in close proximity to the point referred to : — 



Table V. — Comets whose Perihelion Distances are less than 01. 



Perihelion passage. 



Perihelion 

 distance. 



Longitude of 

 perihelion. 



d h 

 1. 1GR8, Feb. 28 13 



0047 

 00o2 

 0055 



277° 2 

 262 49 

 278 39 



2. 1680, Dec. 17 2;{ 



3. 1843 Feb 27 9 





In Table VI. all but the last have their perihelia in the same 

 quadrant. 



