Leo, about one-tenth the
diameter of the full moon. It proved to be a comet approaching the sun.
But it changed little in apparent place or brightness for some weeks.
The gradual development of a central condensation of light was the first
symptom of coming splendour. At Harvard, in the middle of July, a strong
stellar nucleus was seen; on August 14 a tail began to be thrown out. As
the comet wanted still over six weeks of the time of its
perihelion-passage, it was obvious that great things might be expected
of it. They did not fail of realisation.

Not before the early days of September was it generally recognised with
the naked eye, though it had been detected without a glass at Pulkowa,
August 19. But its growth was thenceforward surprisingly rapid, as it
swept with accelerated motion under the hindmost foot of the Great Bear,
and past the starry locks of Berenice. A sudden leap upward in lustre
was noticed on September 12, when the nucleus shone with about the
brightness of the pole-star, and the tail, notwithstanding large
foreshortening, could be traced with the lowest telescopic power over
six degrees of the sphere. The appendage, however, attained its full
development only after perihelion, September 30, by which time, too, it
lay nearly square to the line of sight from the earth. On October 10 it
stretched in a magnificent scimitar-like curve over a third and upwards
of the visible hemisphere, representing a real extension in space of
fifty-four million miles. But the most striking view was presented on
October 5, when the brilliant star Arcturus became involved in the
brightest part of the tail, and during many hours contributed, its
lustre undiminished by the interposed nebulous screen, to heighten the
grandeur of the most majestic celestial object of which living memories
retain the impress. Donati's comet was, according to Admiral Smyth's
testimony,[1188] outdone "as a mere _sight_-object" by the great comet
of 1811; but what it lacked in splendour, it surely made up in grace,
and variety of what we may call "scenic" effects.

Some of these were no less interesting to the student than impressive to
the spectator. At Pulkowa, on the 16th September, Winnecke,[1189] the
first director of the Strasburg Observatory, observed a faint outer
envelope resembling a veil of almost evanescent texture flung somewhat
widely over the head. Next evening, the first of the "secondary" tails
appeared, possibly as part of the