And remember that these comets are no animalculæ. They are monsters
that would reach from the sun to the earth. And when we say that they
come so close to the sun as in the above instances, it means peril to
the earth by direct contact; to say nothing of the results to our
planet by the increased combustion of the run, and the increased heat
on earth should one of them fall upon the sun. We have seen, in the
last chapter, that the great comet of 1843 possessed a tail one
hundred and fifty million miles long; that is, it would reach from
the sun to the earth, and have over fifty million miles of tail to
spare; and it swept this gigantic appendage around in two hours,
describing the are of a circle _six hundred million miles long!_

[1. Guillemin, "The Heavens," p. 247.]

{p. 87}

The mind fails to grasp these figures. Solar space is hardly large
enough for such gyrations.

And it must be remembered that this enormous creature actually
_grazed the surface of the sun_.

And it is supposed that this monster of 1843, which was first seen in
1668, returned, and was seen in the southern hemisphere in 1880--that
is to say, it came back in thirty-seven years instead of one hundred
and seventy-five years. Whereupon Mr. Proctor remarked:

"If already the comet experiences such resistance in passing through
the corona when at its nearest to the sun that its period undergoes a