ddenly rivalled if not
surpassed by the extraordinary object which blazed out beside the sun,
February 28, 1843. It was simultaneously perceived in Mexico and the
United States, in Southern Europe, and at sea off the Cape of Good Hope,
where the passengers on board the _Owen Glendower_ were amazed by the
sight of a "short, dagger-like object," closely following the sun
towards the western horizon.[290] At Florence, Amici found its distance
from the sun's centre at noon to be only 1 deg. 23'; and spectators at
Parma were able, when sheltered from the direct glare of mid-day, to
trace the tail to a length of four or five degrees. The full dimensions
of this astonishing appurtenance began to be disclosed a few days later.
On the 3rd of March it measured 25 deg., and on the 11th, at Calcutta,
Mr. Clerihew observed a second streamer, nearly twice as long as the
first, and making an angle with it of 18 deg., to have been emitted in
a single day. This rapidity of projection, Sir John Herschel remarked,
"conveys an astounding impression of the intensity of the forces at
work." "It is clear," he continued, "that _if we have to deal here with
matter, such as we conceive it_--viz., _possessing inertia--at all_, it
must be under the dominion of forces incomparably more energetic than
gravitation, and quite of a different nature."[291]

On the 17th of March a silvery ray, some 40 deg. long and slightly curved
at its extremity, shone out above the sunset clouds in this country. No
previous intimation had been received of the possibility of such an
apparition, and even astronomers--no lightning messages across the seas
being as yet possible--were perplexed. The nature of the phenomenon,
indeed, soon became evident, but the wonder of it did not diminish with
the study of its attendant circumstances. Never before, within
astronomical memory, had our system been traversed by a body pursuing
such an adventurous career. The closest analogy was offered by the great
comet of 1680 (Newton's), which rushed past the sun at a distance of
only 144,000 miles; but even this--on the cosmical scale--scarcely
perceptible interval was reduced nearly one-half in the case we are now
concerned with. The centre of the comet of 1843 approached the
formidable luminary within 78,000 miles, leaving, it is estimated, a
clear space of not more than 32,000 between the surfaces of the bodies
brought into such perilous proximity. The escape of the wanderer was,
how