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 preciseness of the astronomers that will perhaps inflame us beyond endurance. We note here the far smaller difficulty of determining whether a relatively nearby comet is coming or going. Upon Nov. 6, 1892, Edwin Holmes discovered a comet. In the ''Jour. B. A. A.,'' 3-182, Holmes writes that different astronomers had calculated its distance from twenty million miles to two hundred million miles, and had determined its diameter to be all the way from twenty-seven thousand miles to three hundred thousand miles. Prof. Young said that the comet was approaching; Prof. Parkhurst wrote merely that the impression was that the comet was approaching the earth; but Prof. Berberich (Eng. Mec., 56-316) announced that, upon Nov. 6, Holmes’ comet had been 36,000,000 miles from this earth, and 6,000,000 miles away upon the 16th, and that the approach was so rapid that, upon the 21st the comet would touch this earth.

The comet, which had been receding, kept on receding.