We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
18 the same laws as those of Planets ; but there is no limit to the inclination of their planes to the ecliptic; nor is there any uniformity in the direction of their revolution, The orbit of one of these bodies, which is remarkable as lying entirely within the solar system, and as being traversed in the short period of about 6f years, is shown in DIAGRAM XIII. This comet, which is known as Biela’s, from the name of its discoverer, is small and insignificant ; but has ex- cited much interest from various circumstances. It was one of the first whose return was accurately predicted; and it has on various occasions passed very near to the Earth. The aphelion point of its orbit, marked A, is seen to be a little beyond the orbit of Jupiter ; while its perihelion point, marked P, is within that of the Earth. It crosses that of the Earth very near one of the Nodes ; and consequently if the times of these two bodies should ever exactly coincide, they would come into collision at that point. Little, however, is to be feared from such a contingency, as far as the Earth is concerned, owing to the extremely small quantity of solid matter which this Comet contains. It is computed that in 1805 it must have passed within 5 millions of miles of the Earth. Its appearance is by no means comet-like, as it possesses scarcely any tail, and is more like a faint nebulous star. At its last return in 1846, a most remarkable change took place in its structure; being actually seen to separate itself into two distinct comets, which yet continued to journey onwards together in their orbits, until their increasing distance from the Earth rendered them no longer distinguishable. The orbits of Comets, however, are usually much more eccentric than this one; frequently approaching nearer to the Sun, whilst their aphelion distance must be far beyond the bounds of the solar system. Thus the great Comet of 1843 approached within 64,000