cerned.

Another of the bodies of this class which have received great and
deserved attention was that discovered in the southern hemisphere early
in September, 1882. It increased so much in brilliancy that it was seen
in daylight by Mr. Common on the 17th of that month, while on the same
day the astronomers at the Cape of Good Hope were fortunate enough to
have observed the body actually approach the sun's limb, where it ceased
to be visible. We know that the comet must have passed between the earth
and the sun, and it is very interesting to learn from the Cape observers
that it was totally invisible when it was actually projected on the
sun's disc. The following day it was again visible to the naked eye in
full daylight, not far from the sun, and valuable spectroscopic
observations were secured at Dunecht and Palermo. At that time the comet
was rushing through the part of its orbit closest to the sun, and about
a week later it began to be visible in the morning before sunrise, near
the eastern horizon, exhibiting a fine long tail. (_See_ Plate XVII.)
The nucleus gradually lengthened until it broke into four separate
pieces, lying in a straight line, while the comet's head became
enveloped in a sort of faint, nebulous tube, pointing towards the sun.
Several small detached nebulous masses became also visible, which
travelled along with the comet, though not with the same velocity. The
comet became invisible to the naked eye in February, and was last
observed telescopically in South America on the 1st June, 1883.

There is a remarkable resemblance between the orbit of this comet and
the orbits in which the comet of 1668, the great comet of 1843, and a
great comet seen in 1880 in the southern hemisphere, travelled round the
sun. In fact, these four comets moved along very nearly the same track
and rushed round the sun within a couple of hundred thousand miles of
the surface of the photosphere. It is also possible that the comet
which, according to Aristotle, appeared in the year 372 B.C. followed
the same orbit. And yet we cannot suppose that all these were
apparitions of one and the same comet, as the observations of the comet
of 1882 give the period of revolution of that body equal to about 772
years. It is not impossible that the comets of 1843 and 1880 are one and
the same, but in both years the observations extend over too short a
time to enable us to decide whether the orbit was a parabola or an
ellipse. But as the