THE COMET.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 960, 17 November 1882, Page 2

THE COMET.

Last Tuesday evening, in Oamaru, Dr Roseby of Dunedin, delivered a lecture in the Volunteer Hall, the subject being “The present comet and this week’s eclipse.’’ After explaining by diagrams the position of the stars in the southern heavens and the apparent paths of the present and the

periodical comets, the lecturer briefly described the phenomena of eclipses, having special reference to that of November 11th, and then dea t fully with the subjects of comets. Many might ask, Of what use is astronomy ? One of its uses was to enables people to sleep in. peace at the present time when an enormous comet was nightly rising over their heads. In days gone by it would not have been so, as comets were then objects of ,terror and superstition. Dr Kosehy gave bis audience an interesting account of the motion of the cbmetary bodies. By the aid of carefully prepared diagrams he showed the contemporaneous positions of the present comet and the earth, in regard to the sun, during the past few months and described the curves in which comets move, carefully pointing out that the rate at which a comet travelled was indicative as to whether or no it would visit the earl h|again. In the event of the present comet plunging into the sun, the doctor was not sure lhat dire calamity predicted by Mr Proctor would come to pass as its mass was too slight when compared ■ with that of the sun. It might make no more commotion than does a stone falling into a mill-pond. Many things appeared to,point to the fact that the comets of 1868, 1813, 1880, and ’BB2 were one and the same, and, if so, its final plunge into the sun must soon be looked for., But there was . ’ another theory. All -these four comets moved in one direction—that of the neighborhood of Sirius, and it might be that they constituted, with others, a stream of connection between us and that gigantic sun. If asked to decide between these rival theories, he confessed his inability to do so. If the present comet should return within a year or so, its plunge into the sun would . soon follow. But there was no cause for alarm supposing this should be so. In the year 1859 it is supposed that two immense meteoric or cometary bodies fell into the sun. The effect upon our earih was a great magnetic storm, which for the time paralysed the telegraphs of the world., and the same night brilliant auroras were visible in Europe, America, and Australia. He hoped that if our comet did fall into the. sun no worse consequence than this would follow, —Oamaru Mail.