THE COMET OF 1910.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3116, 16 February 1909, Page 7

THE COMET OF 1910.

Writirg in "Science From An Easy Chair," in the London "Daily Telegraph," Sir Ray Lankester refers to the predicted reapptarance of Halley's comet in 1910. "Edmund Halley,'" he says, "was the intimate fiiend and passionate adnvrer of Newton. He paid out of •hi i own pocket for the publication of Newton's 'Pri.icipia', by the Royal Society i:i 1(586, the society having •expended all its available funds in printing a great work on 'Fishes' (which shows how at the first, as now, the society cared for the whole range of the study of Nature), Halley was able to show that comets move regularly round the sun, in oiedience to_theJsame law ot gravitation which controls the movements of the planets, and of our earth itself; so that many of them are regular members of the solar system. Halley especially calculated out the .form of the orbit of tne comet of J. 682 as an eclipse, and the lime of its journey and recurrence, or 'period,' as it is called, which he showed to be about 75 or 76 years. He predicted its recurrence in 1758. Hailed died in 1742, at the ripe age of 86, having, amongst other deeds, founded the Royal Society Club, which still dines every Thursday in the session. His comet reappeared in 1759, a few months later than he had, owing to incomplete details used in his calculation, expected; but the accuracy of his scheme of ..Its movement was demonstrated. It ~dul} appeared again in 1635, ar,c! it is r.ow awaited again in the spring of 1910. H-?ll o y himself had identified iiia co'.ticl that nf 1607 and of 1531, and lately, by the aid of records from an ancient seat ot astronomical observation actually from Cnina—it has been traced back to the month of May in the year 240 B.C. It has caused consternation and terror times enough since then, of some of which we have record. Finally, it has become the leading instance of the triumph of > scientific knowledge and accuracy j • over ignorance and superstition. I Halley's comec caused great alarm j in Rome in the year 66 A.D. A I thousand years later, 1066, it was i seen when William the Conqueror was prepariig to descend on the •coast of England, and is actually representjd in the Bayeux tjpestry. A number of men are drawn (or rather 'siitched'), with finger pointed -and eyes raised to a shaue i.i the i-ky wnicn rebembles a starfish with a iarae triargular-ribbed petticoat attactud to it, ending in eight flames or tongues. The picture is labelled, *ltti miiant.stella." There is now nc doubt, as accurate calculations .have demonstrated, that William the Conqueror's 'star' was Halley's comet—a l'act which must give its reappearance in 1910 an additiunal inttrest in .the eyes of Eng.ishrrien."