MR PROCTOR AND THE 'COMET OF 1880.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1093, 29 May 1882, Page 3

MR PROCTOR AND THE 'COMET OF 1880.

♦ In my last or some recent letter I referred to the singular theory which the above eminent astronomer had promulgated in reference to this particular comet, viz, how it was in all probability gradually closing in upon the sun with an ever-narrowing orbit, until in about seventeen or eighteen years it would probably be drawn into 'the gigantic bulk of the sun.. Inasmuch as the comets are followed, it is believed, by vast crowds of meteoiites, such an impact might produce heat sufficient to destroy all life in the solar system. This prediction, as may be supposed, created some alarm, which Mr Proctor has thought proper to allay, by pointing out that no untoward emission of heat was sensible «ither in 1843 or 1880, at both which times the orbit of the wanderer was seriously checked on nearing the sun. All he asserts is that serious results may follow the absorption of the comet, but that they are highly problematic ; but he points out that there have undoubtedly been comets such as those of 1811 and 1858 which, had they been directed full on the sun, would have produced most serious results, as their heads and trains are known to have contained immense masses of jneteoric matter. The only true and real danger Mr Proctor considers possible is the chance of a comet falling direct upon the sun from interstellar space, but since life has existed on the uarth for hundreds of thousands of j&ges, it is evident such a contingency is f naked nothing. "