that, if the force driving off the tails is that which Arrhenius
assumes it to be, the forms of those appendages would accord with
those that Bredichin's theory calls for. At the same time we have an
explanation of the multiple tails with which some comets have adorned
themselves. The comet of 1744, for instance, had at one time no less
than seven tails spread in a wide curved brush behind it. Donati's
comet of 1858 also had at least two tails, the principal one
sword-shaped and the other long, narrow, and as straight as a rule.
According to Bredichin, the straight tail must have been composed of
hydrogen, and the other of some form of hydro-carbon whose atoms are
heavier than those of hydrogen, and, consequently, when swept away by
the storm of light-waves, followed a curvature depending upon the
resultant of the forces operating upon them. The seven tails of the
comet of 1744 presented a kind of diagram graphically exhibiting its
complex composition, and, if we knew a little more about the
constituents of a comet, we might be able to say from the amount of
curvature of the different tails just what were the seven substances
of which that comet consisted.

If these theories seem to the reader fantastic, at any rate they are
no more fantastic than the phenomena that they seek to explain.

Meteors, Fire-Balls, and Meteorites

One of the most terrorizing spectacles with which the heavens have
ever caused the hearts of men to quake occurred on the night of
November 13, 1833. On that night North America, which faced the storm,
was under a continual rain of fire from about ten o'clock in the
evening until daybreak.