Lewis Boss

“ If the comet of 1881 proves to have a periodic time between one and two thousand years the plausibility of this hypothesis will be very much strengthened.
I have been too much pressed with other duties to give close or systematic attention to the physical characteristics of the comet. The nights of June 26, June 28, July 1, 8 and 13 were unusually favorable for such studies here. The atmosphere was unusually transparent on June 26 and I then traced the tail for a distance of nearly forty degrees from the nucleus. ”

“ It seems to me more likely that these two comets may have formed parts of the same body in distant ages, and that these parts may have separated as Biela's comet did. The two parts would need to have but slightly differing mean distances from the sun in order eventually to reach the amount of separation which now exists between the perihelion passages of the 1807 and 1881 comets. A great number of similar, though generally less striking resemblances among cometic orbits have been noted, in cases where absolute identity between the two comets considered seems impossible. ”

“ On July 1, the two branches seem to have merged into one, presenting a shorter and broad fan-like appendage, perfectly straight and strongly marked on the preceding side, concave and nebulous on the following.
On all occasions the nucleus under a power of 250 has seemed to be quite distinctly defined and star-like in appearance. ”