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The moon and the bright auroral lights made this task an agreeable one. Then, too, we had Coggia's comet speeding through the northern heavens, awakening many an odd conjecture in the mind of my old salt.
In the telescope, the "two interlacing arcs of light" which had adorned the head of Coggia's comet were reproduced; while a curious dorsal spine of strong illumination formed the axis of the tail, which extended in clear skies over an arc of 20°. It belonged to the same "type" as Donati's great plume; the particles composing it being driven from the sun by a force twice as powerful as that urging them towards it.
The light of Coggia's comet, however, was found to contain all five, traces of the violet band emerging June 4, of the red, July 2. Presumably, all five would show universally in cometary spectra, were the dispersed rays strong enough to enable them to be seen. The gaseous surroundings of comets are, then, largely made up of a compound of hydrogen with carbon.
Forty years have elapsed since M. Brédikhine, director successively of the Moscow and of the Pulkowa Observatories, turned his attention to these curious phenomena. His persistent inquiries on the subject, however, date from the appearance of Coggia's comet in 1874.
I have not heard that any very serious consequences were expected to follow the appearance of Coggia's comet in 1874. The great heat which prevailed during parts of the summer of 1876 was held by many to be connected in some way with a comet which some very unskilful telescopist constructed in his imagination out of the glare of Jupiter in the object-glass of his telescope.
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