expected return, in 1911 or 1912, will be awaited with interest.” This is pretty indefinite awaiting: it is now said that this comet did return upon Sept 19, 1911. Denning’s Second Periodic Comet (1894, I)—expected, in 1909, but not seen up to Mr. Chambers’ time of writing—no mention in Monthly Notices. Swift’s Comet, of Nov. 20, 1894—“must be regarded as lost, unless it should be found in December, 1912.” No mention of it in Monthly Notices.
Three comets were predicted to return in 1913—not one of them returned (Monthly Notices, 74-326).
Once upon a time, armed with some of the best and latest cynicisms, I was hunting for prey in the Magazine of Science, and came upon an account of a comet that was expected in the year 1848. I supposed that the thing had been positively predicted, and very likely failed to appear, and, for such common game, had no interest. But I came upon the spoor of disgrace, in the word “triumph”—“If it does come, it will afford another astronomical triumph” (Mag. of Sci., 1848-107). The astronomers had predicted the return of a great comet in the year 1848. In Monthly Notices, April, 1847, Mr. Hind says that the result of his calculations had satisfied him that the identification had been complete, and that, in all probability, “the comet must be very near.” Accepting Prof. Mädler’s determinations, he predicted that the comet would return to position nearest the sun, about the end of February, 1848.
No comet.
The astronomers explained. I don’t know what the mind of an astronomer looks like, but I think of a fizzle with excuses revolving around it. A writer in the American Journal of Science, 2-9-442, explains excellently. It seems that, when the comet failed to return, Mr. Barber, of Etwell, again went over the calculations. He found that, between the years 1556 and 1592, the familiar attractions of Jupiter and Saturn had diminished the comet’s period by 263 days, but that something else had wrought an effect that he set down positively at 751 days, with a resulting retardation of 488 days. This is magic that would petrify, with chagrin, the arteries of the hemorrhagicalest
