2-798-431 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The New Comet, drawn at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1844. 'In its course towards the sun, it is rapidly approaching the earth, a circumstance which has caused timid and visionary people some alarm. The fever of apprehension is not, however, so great as that which disturbed the Patisian population in 1773, when a similar phenomenon occurred. On that occasion, many persons are said to have died of fright; while numbers prepared for the worst by purchasing - what were offered at high premiums - places in paradise. To relieve the fear of such a catastrophe, we may inform the public of the result of some very curious and elaborate calculations made by Arago to show the extremely small probability of a contact between ourselves and any comet whatever'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.