When I was in Australia, in 1880,
a few months after the great comet had passed out of view, I met several
persons who had seen both the comet of that year and the comet of 1843.
They all agreed in saying that the resemblance between the two comets
was very close. Like the comet of 1843, that of 1880 had a singularly
long tail, and both comets were remarkable for the smallness and dimness
of their heads. One observer told me that at times the head of the comet
of 1880 could barely be discerned.
Like the comets of 1668 and 1843, the comet of 1880 grazed close past
the sun's surface. Like them, it was but about two hours and a half
north of the earth's orbit place. Had it only resembled the other two in
these remarkable characteristics, the coincidence would have been
remarkable. But of course the real evidence by which the association
between the comets was shown was of a more decisive kind. It was not in
general character only, but in details, that the path of the comet of
1880 resembled those on which the other two comets had traveled. Its
path had almost exactly the same slant to the earth's orbit plane as
theirs, crossed that plane ascendingly and descendingly at almost
exactly the same points, and made its nearest approach to the sun at
very nearly the same place. To the astronomer such evidence is decisive.
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