H. A. Newton — The Story of Biela's Comet. 93 



Their orbits had been computed with care. The comets, as 

 single or double, had been observed for 80 years, that is 12 

 revolutions, and we knew well their orbits. All known dis- 

 turbing forces had been allowed for. It could hardly be that 

 they should have gone so large a distance out of the way. It 

 is much more probable that this was a third large fragment, 

 thrown off centuries ago. The two observations made by Mr. 

 Pogson were not enough to compute an orbit from, but they 

 do show that his comet was very near us, and were such as 

 one traveling in the Biela stream might give. But they also 

 show that the earth did not pass through the Pogson comet 

 centrally. 



Orbit of the Biela Meteors. — In 1798, when the earth was at 

 N, and Brandes saw the fragments from Biela, the comet was 

 at C (fig. 7). In 1838 Mr. Herrick and others- saw such frag- 

 ments of the comet at 1ST, 300,000,000 miles ahead of the main 

 body at A, and in 1872 we met like fragments at N, 200,000,000 

 miles behind the main body, which should have been at B. 

 Thus the fragments are strewn along the comet's orbit, prob- 

 ably in clusters, for at least 500,000,000 miles. 



My story of Biela's comet and of its fragments has covered 

 100 years. Do we get any glimpses of its earlier life, and can 

 we guess how it grew into its present shape? Yes, we may 

 make our hypothesis. But we must not forget that to tell 

 others how God must have made the world is bewitching to 

 many minds, and that of the thousands of trials at world- 

 building almost all have been grievous failures. With this 

 caution let me give you a plausible form of this early story of 

 Biela. 



Once upon a time, hundreds of thousands of years ago, this 

 comet was traveling in outer space, among the fixed stars, too 

 far away to be attracted by the sun. What I mean by this 

 outer starry space may be told by the help of the pictures I 

 have shown you. In them the earth's distance from the sun 

 is 10 inches, and the comet's longest range about five feet. 

 Upon the scale of these figures only a few of the nearest fixed 

 stars, perhaps two or three only, would be in the State of 

 Connecticut. In this starry space the comet was traveling. 

 What had happened before I do not try to guess. How, when, 

 by what changes, its matter came together, and had become 

 solid, I do not know, nor whether, in fact, it had not always 

 been solid. 



In the course of time its path and the sun's path through 

 space lay alongside of each other, and the sun drew the comet 

 down toward itself. If the comet had met no resistance as it 

 ran around the sun, whether from the ether that fills space, or 

 from the sun's atmosphere, and if it had not come near any of 



