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  • Oct. 1, 1797
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  • HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES FOR 1797.
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The Freemasons' Magazine, Oct. 1, 1797: Page 17

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    Article HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES FOR 1797. ← Page 2 of 2
Page 17

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History Of The Sciences For 1797.

streaming from the sun ; and that a comet passing through the solar atmosphere is involved therein , and carries away some of it . But the many disc veries which , since the days of Newton and other famous astronomers , have been made in electricity , having brought us acquainted with an element unknown to former ages , and which shows a vast power through every part of the creation , it became natural to imagine that it must extend into those hiher regions

g which are inaccessible to man . The similarity of the tails of comets to the aurora borealis , which is commonly looked on to be an electrical phenomenon , therefore , suggested an opinion that the tails of comets are streams of electrical matter . The velocity of comets is sometimes inconceivably great . Mr . Brydone observed one at Palermo in July 1770 which in 24 hours

, , described an arch of the heavens upwards of Jo degrees in length ; according to which he supposes that if it was as far distant as the sun , it must have moved at the rate of upwards of 60 millions of miles in a day . The near approach of some comets to the sun subjects them to intense degrees of heat . Sir Isaac Newton calculated that lhe heat of the

comet in 1680 must have been near two thousand times as great as . that of red hot iron . Dr . Long , however , observes that' the comet in question certainly acquired a prodigious heat ; but I cannot think it came up to what the calculation makes it ; the effect of the strongest burning glass that has ever been made use of was the vitrification of most bodies placed in its focus . What would be the effect of a

still greater heat we can only conjecture * , it would , perhaps , so disunite the parts as to make rhem fly off every way in atoms . This , comet , according to Halley , in passing through its southern node , dame within the length of the sun ' s semi-diameter of the orbit of the earth . Had the earth then been in the part of her orbit nearest to that node , their mutual gravitation must have caused a change in the plane of the orbit of the earthand in the length of our year : he

, adds , that if so large a body , with so rapid a motion as that of this comet , were to strike against the earth , a thing by no means impossible , the shock mi g ht reduce this beautiful frame to its original chaos . ' Mr . Whiston attributed the universal deluge to the near approach of a comet . He thought that the earth passing through the

atmosphere of the comet , attracted from it great part of the water of the flood ; that the nearness of the comet raised a great tide in the subterraneous waters , so that the outer crust of the earth was changed from a spherical to an oval figure ; that this could not be done without makh . g fissures and cracks in it , through which the waters ' forced themselves , by the hollow of the earth being changed into a

a less capacious form ; that with the water thus forced upon the surfice of the earth , much slime or mud would arise , which , with the grosser part of the comet ' s atmosphere , would , after the subsiding of tlie water , partly into the fissures and partly into the lower parts of the earth , to form the sea , cover all over , to a considerable depth , the antediluvian earth . [ TO BE CONTINUED . ]

“The Freemasons' Magazine: 1797-10-01, Page 17” Masonic Periodicals Online, Library and Museum of Freemasonry, 1 June 2025, django:8000/periodicals/fmm/issues/fmm_01101797/page/17/.
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Title Category Page
Untitled Article 1
Untitled Article 2
LONDON: Article 2
Untitled Article 3
THE LIFE OF DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. Article 4
SlNGULAR CUSTOM IN DEVONSHIRE. Article 9
WEST INDIA CRUELTY. Article 9
A REVIEW OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE. Article 10
HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES FOR 1797. Article 16
DESCRIPTION OF THE PEAK OF TENERIFFE. Article 18
ON THE PECULIAR EXCELLENCIES OF HANDEL'S MUSIC. Article 20
THE COLLECTOR. Article 22
THE FREEMASONS' REPOSITORY. Article 27
ON THE MASONIC CHARACTER. Article 35
A VINDICATION OF MASONRY. Article 37
REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Article 42
POETRY. Article 50
REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. Article 54
HOUSE OF COMMONS. Article 55
MONTHLY CHRONICLE. Article 62
OBITUARY. Article 72
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Page 17

Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.

History Of The Sciences For 1797.

streaming from the sun ; and that a comet passing through the solar atmosphere is involved therein , and carries away some of it . But the many disc veries which , since the days of Newton and other famous astronomers , have been made in electricity , having brought us acquainted with an element unknown to former ages , and which shows a vast power through every part of the creation , it became natural to imagine that it must extend into those hiher regions

g which are inaccessible to man . The similarity of the tails of comets to the aurora borealis , which is commonly looked on to be an electrical phenomenon , therefore , suggested an opinion that the tails of comets are streams of electrical matter . The velocity of comets is sometimes inconceivably great . Mr . Brydone observed one at Palermo in July 1770 which in 24 hours

, , described an arch of the heavens upwards of Jo degrees in length ; according to which he supposes that if it was as far distant as the sun , it must have moved at the rate of upwards of 60 millions of miles in a day . The near approach of some comets to the sun subjects them to intense degrees of heat . Sir Isaac Newton calculated that lhe heat of the

comet in 1680 must have been near two thousand times as great as . that of red hot iron . Dr . Long , however , observes that' the comet in question certainly acquired a prodigious heat ; but I cannot think it came up to what the calculation makes it ; the effect of the strongest burning glass that has ever been made use of was the vitrification of most bodies placed in its focus . What would be the effect of a

still greater heat we can only conjecture * , it would , perhaps , so disunite the parts as to make rhem fly off every way in atoms . This , comet , according to Halley , in passing through its southern node , dame within the length of the sun ' s semi-diameter of the orbit of the earth . Had the earth then been in the part of her orbit nearest to that node , their mutual gravitation must have caused a change in the plane of the orbit of the earthand in the length of our year : he

, adds , that if so large a body , with so rapid a motion as that of this comet , were to strike against the earth , a thing by no means impossible , the shock mi g ht reduce this beautiful frame to its original chaos . ' Mr . Whiston attributed the universal deluge to the near approach of a comet . He thought that the earth passing through the

atmosphere of the comet , attracted from it great part of the water of the flood ; that the nearness of the comet raised a great tide in the subterraneous waters , so that the outer crust of the earth was changed from a spherical to an oval figure ; that this could not be done without makh . g fissures and cracks in it , through which the waters ' forced themselves , by the hollow of the earth being changed into a

a less capacious form ; that with the water thus forced upon the surfice of the earth , much slime or mud would arise , which , with the grosser part of the comet ' s atmosphere , would , after the subsiding of tlie water , partly into the fissures and partly into the lower parts of the earth , to form the sea , cover all over , to a considerable depth , the antediluvian earth . [ TO BE CONTINUED . ]

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