ON THE COMET IN THE CONSTELLATION ANDROMEDA. 333: 
left the observation of this object to northern observers, because 
it is much better situated for them. On November 22nd I 
pointed out in the daily papers the suspicious circumstance under 
which the new comet appeared, for the earth was about to enter 
that region in space where its orbit is intersected by the path of 
the historical comet of Biela, and our visitor kept an almost in- 
variable apparent position in Andromeda, which is the very part 
of the sky from which Biela’s Comet would come to us if it 
approached the earth in the way stated in the London cable 
message. Under the impression that the comet might turn out 
to be a fragment of the Comet Biela, which it was well known 
had become widely scattered since the return of 1852, I con- 
tinued my observations until the increasing moonlight rendered 
it almost invisible. At no time was it a good object for 
observation, for it was a large diffused patch of light with no 
sensible condensation towards its centre. The observations were 
made in a dark field with a square bar-micrometer adapted to the 
four and a half inch equatorial, and it was with the utmost diffi- — 
culty that I could estimate the times when the centre of the comet 
was on the edges of the bars. The individual measures are there- 
fore more inconsistent inter se than is usually the case: indeed 
this comet is about the most unsatisfactory one I have observed in 
an experience of upwards of thirty years. At the close of this. 
paper I have given the results of the observations, and they will 
afford data for an approximate determination of the orbit, a work 
which I cannot myself undertake at present in connection with 
the routine of my observatory. The data may, however, be useful 
to any local mathematician who may have both the desire and the 
leisure to satisfy public curiosity. Until the orbit is computed it 
is of course impossible to say definitively whether our visitor is. 
moving in the orbit of Biela’s celebrated comet or not. A look- 
out has been kept at my observatory for meteoric or auroral dis-. 
plays, but nothing of any great importance has been seen. Two 
or three meteors were seen close to the comet on the evening of 
November 20th, and while observing with the micrometer on the 
