Part 14

1882—Comet of Tel-el-Kebir. A Comet with two tails was seen at its brightest over Egypt during the first two weeks of September. Egypt was then in the midst of Arabi Pasha’s uprising against the British. On September 18, when the Comet was last seen, Arabi Pasha was overthrown by General Wolseley in the bloody battle of Tel-el-Kebir.

1904-5—Manchurian War Comet. From the early part of February, 1904, until Midsummer, 1905, Chinese observers recorded the appearance of a Comet over Northern China. Throughout that period Manchuria was ravaged by the bloody war between the Japanese and Russians.

Earthquake Comets.

1906—San Francisco Comet. A Comet discovered by Ross on March 17, remaining visible for one month. Observed from the Lick Observatory in California. On April 17 came the California earthquake and burning of San Francisco.

1908—Morehouse’s Comet. Visible for more than a month, during the autumn. In Italy it was interpreted afterward as an omen foreboding the Messina earthquake late in the year.

This Year’s Comets.

1910—Inness’ Comet, otherwise known as “1910 A”. An unexpected Comet of short duration during January. On the appearance of this Comet Madame de Thebes, a French astrologer, predicted floods and general disaster for France. The disappearance of the Comet in France was followed by unprecedented rains and floods which covered one-fourth of France with water and inundated Paris, completely submerging all the bridges over the Seine. Floods also in Italy and Germany. This Comet was likewise observed in China late in January, where it caused universal consternation.

1910—Pidoux’s Comet. Another unexpected Comet was first observed by Pidoux, in Geneva, during a few nights late in February. It is recorded astronomically as “1910 B”. Its fleeting observations by astronomers were followed by Socialist franchise riots in Germany and by the labour riots of Philadelphia, with widespread bloodshed between the rioters and the constabulary.

1910—Halley’s Comet of this year was first “picked up” by Dr. Wolf, in Germany. Already various astrologers have foretold disaster from its coming. It remains to be seen whether their predictions will come true.

HALLEY’S BALEFUL COMET

Among all the stars known in astronomy, the periodically returning Comet now known as Halley’s Comet has the most baleful record.

In this Comet’s wake, after every one of its recorded appearances, there have always followed terrible disasters.

Not only war and battles, or other deeds of bloodshed, such as massacres and murders, but each of the dread disasters that are held to go with Comets have followed along one after the other in this Comet’s train.

Of the eight baneful after-effects of Comets mentioned in the old German ditty that has been sung in the Fatherland ever since the great Comet which ushered in the dreadful Thirty Years’ War,

“Wind, Famine, Plague and Death to Kings War, Earthquakes, Floods and Dire Things.”

Halley’s Comet is known to have preceded each and every form of these evils in turn.

Directly after each return of Halley’s Comet there has always followed somewhere within the influence of its rays one or other of those “dire things,”—a flood, an earthquake, a hurricane, famine, plague, war, bloodshed, or the sudden death of a ruler.

Thanks to the careful work of such painstaking astronomers and historians as Lubienitius, Pingré, Dionys de Séjour, J. Russell Hind, Laugier, and Messrs. Cowell and Crommelin, the records of great events connected with Halley’s Comet have been traced back nearly 2,000 years, to the days before Christ.

Among the signal events following in the train of this Comet there have been so many bloody massacres and appalling disasters that Halley’s Comet now has the ominous distinction of being the bloodiest of all stars of ill omen.

Herewith follows the story of this Comet’s periodic appearances in history and of the events connected therewith, as traced back from its last return in 1835 to its first recorded entrance into the history of mankind.

1835-1836

Halley’s Comet last appeared in the Summer of 1835, and was seen until Spring of the following year.

It was first discerned by Father Dumouchel with a powerful telescope from the observatory of the Collegio Romano in Rome on the night of August 6, 1835. Father Dumouchel, who had been watching for it many months, picked it up close to the spot in the heavens that Rosenberger, a German astronomer, had predicted for its appearance on that date.

The last astronomer to see the Comet was Sir John Herschel, who observed it from the Cape of Good Hope until the middle of May, 1836.

Other noted astronomers who made observations of it were Arago, Struve, Bessel, Kaiser, Sir Thomas Maclear, Admiral Smyth, Baron Damoiseau and Count Pontécoulant.

This last astronomer, many years before, had computed the exact time of its coming and came within four days of it. For this brilliant feat Count Pontécoulant received a gold medal from the French Academy of Sciences.

The German astronomer, Rosenberger, who had likewise computed the Comet’s return, coming within five days of its passage nearest to the Sun, received a similar gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain.

Professor Struve, who studied the Comet through the great telescope at Dorpat in Russia, described it as “glowing like a red-hot coal of oblong form.”