THE COMETARY SYSTEM.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 65, 14 March 1843, Page 3

THE COMETARY SYSTEM.

The following remarks upon the Cometary System, we have extracted from the Magazine of Popular Science, believing they will’be'perused with some interest at the present time by most of our readers : It was the declared opinion of ohe Bodirius, a learned man of the 16th century, that comets were no other than the soul 5 of illustrious men, who, having remained many ages upon the earth in the capacity of guardian angels, had been called to heaven in the shape of flaming stars. If a comet, instead of being a mere accumulation of nebulous matter, as ou£ philosophy teaches us that it is, were, as Bodinus believed it to be, some bright intelligence interested in the destinies of our race, and commissioned, at stated seasons, to work out the designs of Providence in this nether world, how manifold are the subjects of speculation which we might assign to it, as, after each return, it again and again toiled through the years of its solitary journey. / The comet of 1835, when it came in 1456, encountered by the anathemas of the whole Catholic Church, headed by the Pope. Dismayed at once by the progress of the Turks and the progress ®f the comet, Calixtas included them both in the same prayer of conjuration ordered to be said in all the churches. It came again in 1531, and found America discovered, printing invented and in general use, and the Reformation begun.* 1607 again completed its■ cycle. And now

the Copernican system had been published to the world ;f the telescope had been discovered; Galileo and Kepler had been born, and had probably laid the foundations of their discoveries, the one in mechanics, and the other in astronomy. Next came 1682 and the comet, and the laws of motion were ascertained and published to the world; the discoveries of Kepler were made, and Newton hadbuilt up upon them the theory of universal gravitation. 1759 was to be the next period of its appearance, and its coming was now, for the first time, foreseen. Halley, afterwards Savilian professor at Oxford, having undertaken to calculate the orbits of the different comets which

had, up to that time, been observed, presented, in 1705, to the Royal Society, a work called Cometographia, in which he predicted J the return of the comet of 1682 in 1758, an announcement received in those days with no little surprise and interest. It was, however, immediately foreseen by astronomers, that the path of this comet would be disturbed by the attraction of the planet Jupiter. and Clairaut undertook, to •' calculate the amount of this disturbance' We wprk' was one of enormous labour, which, they would never have undertaken, as Lalande himself admits,, had not assistance been rendered to them (strange to say) by a lady. To Madame Lepaute, the wife of a celebrated watchmaker in Paris, was assigned a principal portion of their calculations, and to that lady is due a principal share in their success. “ During six months we calculated from morning till night, even during meals,” says Lalande. They determined the actual perturbations, during 150 years, of Jupiter and Saturn, and they arrived, finally, at the conclusion, that its coming would be delayed no less than 518 days by the attraction ofjupiter, and 100 more days by Saturn. Thej time of. its perihelion passage was thus brought to 13th April, 1759: it was, nevertheless, stated, that errors might have been made, amounting to a month either way. , These conclusions Clairaut published to the world in November, 1758, .when, [astronomers had already begun to look for the; comet. It was first seen by a farmer of the name of Palitzch, near Dresden, on December 25, 1758, and at Paris, on January 21, 1759. v Jt passed its perihelion on March 13, 1759, just one month after the time predicted. (To be continued.)

* This time it was accurately observed by one Apian, a professor of mathematics, at Ingolstadt. f ’ The great work of Copernicus, De RevOlutionibus , Was. published in 1543. £ His Words, translated, are “ Hence -1 dare .venture to foretel that it will return again in 1758.”. At one of the groups known by the name of Solomon’s Islands, in the South Pacific, the

whaling ship, Offley, of London, commanded by Capt. Lazenby, and belonging to Messrs. Curling & Young,, of-London, had seventeen of her crew assassinated (including the mate and surgeon) in the month of May last, owing to the mate indiscreetly shooting the chief upon supposition that he had harboured two sailors who had absented themselves from the ship. We publish this for the information of whaling captains in particular, as, ho doubt, the natives will revenge the loss of their cheif upon any Englishmen who may land there. The Offley took on board the carpenter, one seaman, and two boys, at Rotti, belonging to the Two Sisters, which was wrecked in Torres Straits. Farina of Potatoes. —The farina, or flour, of which starch is made, is easily procured .from potatoes, by simply grating them into clear spring water, when it separates from the other particles, and sinks lo the bottom. In 1807, Mrs. Norris, of Union-street, near the Middlesex hospital, discovered that the liquor obtainec. in the process of making potato-starch would clean silk, woollen, or cotton goods, without damage to the texture or colour. It is also good for cleaning painted wainscots and the whiHi substance of which' potatostarch is made, is a useful nourishing food with soup or milk. Potatoes boiled down tp a pulp, and passed through a seive, form a strong and nourishing gruel, that may be given to calves as well as pigs, with great advantags and saving of milk.

Scotland. —A correspondent of the Dumfries Courier, writing of the Stranraer cattle market, says “ There were about 250 head of cattle in our market to-day; but up to four o’clock p.in. not a single sale was effected, there being, in fact, no demand whatever. The farmers, upon the whole, seemed very dull, going about scratching their heads, cursing Sir Robert’s tariff. One farmer, who had made a purchase of 20 one-year-old stirks, this day twelve months, at 3/. 15s. 6d. per headj was this day offered, for the said lot (now two years old), The princely entertainments of the Marquis of Breatfalbane will, it‘is said, cost 60,0001. The Marquis has a rent-roll of 45,000/. per annum, besides considerable accumulations of money, and he has no family. This royal tribute, therefore, while it will help to benefit tradesmen, and confer happiness on countless numbers of his countrymen, besides being honourable to “ old Scotland,” will entail no embarrassment on the generous donor. The guildry of Dundee have conferred the freedom of their incorporation upon the Marquis, “as a public acknowledgment of the princely and magnificent manner in which he received and entertoined her Majesty and her Royal Consort at Taymouth Castle, on the occasion of their late visit—a matter in which we feel the more peculiar interest, as the noble Marquis was born in Dundee.