extend over three
days. At Reus, near Tarragona, it showed bright enough to be seen
through a passing cloud when only three of the sun's diameters from his
limb, just before its final rush past perihelion on September 17; while
at Carthagena in Spain, on September 19, it was kept in view during two
hours before and two hours after noon, and was similarly visible in
Algeria on the same day.[1317]

But still more surprising than the appearance of the body itself were
the nature and relations of the path it moved in. The first rough
elements computed for it by Mr. Tebbutt, Dr. Chandler, and Mr. White,
assistant at the Melbourne Observatory, showed at once a striking
resemblance to those of the twin comets of 1843 and 1880. This
suggestive fact became known in this country, September 27, through the
medium of a Dunecht circular. It was fully confirmed by subsequent
inquiries, for which ample opportunities were luckily provided. The
likeness was not, indeed, so absolutely perfect as in the previous case;
it included some slight, though real differences; but it bore a strong
and unmistakable stamp, broadly challenging explanation.

Two hypotheses only were really available. Either the comet of 1882 was
an accelerated return of those of 1843 and 1880, or it was a fragment of
an original mass to which they also had belonged. For the purposes of
the first view the "resisting medium" was brought into full play; the
opinion of its efficacy was for some time both prevalent and popular,
and formed the basis, moreover, of something of a sensational panic. For
a comet which, at a single passage through the sun's atmosphere,
encountered sufficient resistance to shorten its period from
thirty-seven to two years and eight months, must, in the immediate
future, be brought to rest on his surface; and the solar conflagration
thence ensuing was represented in some quarters, with more licence of
imagination than countenance from science, as likely to be of
catastrophic import to the inhabitants of our little planet.

But there was a test available in 1882 which it had not been possible to
apply either in 1843 or in 1880. The two bodies visible in those years
had been observed only after they had already passed perihelion;[1318]
the third member of the group, on the other hand, was accurately
followed for a week before that event, as well as during many months
after it. Finlay's and Elkin's observation of its disappearance at the
sun's edge