Abstract
AN observation taken here on July 4, shows so close an agreement with the position calculated from my parabolic elements in NATURE (vol. x. p. 149), that it appears unlikely the comet can have so short a period as 137 years, and consequently that, notwithstanding similarity of orbits, it probably is not identical with the body observed by the French Jesuits in China in July 1737. Between April 17, the date of discovery, and July 4 it had traversed an arc of just 90° of true anomaly, and if any decided ellipticity existed, so wide an arc must have shown it, the stellar appearance of the nucleus having admitted of very exact observation throughout. On July 4, twenty-one days after the last position I employed in determining the orbit, the computed right ascension differs only 20″, and the declination 14″ from the observation. In all probability, therefore, the comet has not visited these parts of space within many centuries.
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