The phenomenon of the tail of a Comet being visible in bright Sunshine,
which is recorded of the comet of 1402, occurred again in the case of
the large comet of 1843, whose nucleus and tail were seen in North
America on February 28th (according to the testimony of J. G. Clarke,
of Portland, State of Maine), between one and three o’clock in the
afternoon. The distance of the very dense nucleus from the sun’s
light admitted of being measured with much exactness. The nucleus and
tail (a darker space intervening) appeared like a very pure white
cloud.--_American Journal of Science_, vol. xiv.
E. C. Otté, the translator of Bohn’s edition of Humboldt’s _Cosmos_,
at New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S., Feb. 28th, 1843, distinctly saw
the above comet between one and two in the afternoon. The sky at the
time was intensely blue, and the sun shining with a dazzling brightness
unknown in European climates.
This very remarkable Comet, seen in England on the 17th of March
1843, had a nucleus with the appearance of a planetary disc, and the
brightness of a star of the first or second magnitude. It had a double
tail divided by a dark line. At the Cape of Good Hope it was seen in
full daylight, and in the immediate vicinity of the sea; but the most
remarkable fact in its history was its near approach to the sun, its
distance from his surface being only _one-fourteenth_ of his diameter.
The heat to which it was exposed, therefore, was much greater than that
which Sir Isaac Newton ascribed to the comet of 1680, namely 200 times
that of red-hot iron. Sir John Herschel has computed that it must have
been 24 times greater than that which was produced in the focus of
Parker’s burning lens, 32 inches in diameter, which melts crystals of
quartz and agate.[21]