The return of the same body in 1845-46 was marked by an extraordinary circumstance. When first seen, November 28, it wore its usual aspect of a faint round patch of cosmical fog; but on December 19, Mr. Hind noticed that it had become distorted somewhat into the form of a pear; and ten days later, it had divided into two separate objects. This singular duplication was first perceived at New Haven in America, December 29,[257] by Messrs. Herrick and Bradley, and by Lieutenant Maury at Washington, January 13, 1846. The earliest British observer of the phenomenon (noticed by Wichmann the same evening at Königsberg) was Professor Challis. "I see _two_ comets!" he exclaimed, putting his eye to the great equatoreal of the Cambridge Observatory on the night of January 15; then, distrustful of what his senses had told him, he called in his judgment to correct their improbable report by resolving one of the dubious objects into a hazy star.[258] On the 23rd, however, both were again seen by him in unmistakable cometary shape, and until far on in March (Otto Struve caught a final glimpse of the pair on the 16th of April),[259] continued to be watched with equal curiosity and amazement by astronomers in every part of the northern hemisphere. What Seneca reproved Ephorus for supposing to have taken place in 373 b.c.--what Pingré blamed Kepler for conjecturing in 1618--had then actually occurred under the attentive eyes of science in the middle of the nineteenth century! At a distance from each other of about two-thirds the distance of the moon from the earth, the twin comets meantime moved on tranquilly, so far, at least, as their course through the heaven was concerned. Their extreme _lightness_, or the small amount of matter contained in each, could not have received a more signal illustration than by the fact that their revolutions round the sun were performed independently; that is to say, they travelled side by side without experiencing any appreciable mutual disturbance, thus plainly showing that at an interval of only 157,250 miles their attractive power was virtually inoperative. Signs of internal agitation, however, were not wanting. Each fragment threw out a short tail in a direction perpendicular to the line joining their centres, and each developed a bright nucleus, although the original comet had exhibited neither of these signs of cometary vitality. A singular interchange of brilliancy was, besides, observed to take place between the coupled objects, each of which alternately outshone and was outshone by the other, while an arc of light, apparently proceeding from the more lustrous, at times bridged the intervening space. Obviously, the gravitational tie, rendered powerless by exiguity of matter, was here replaced by some other form of mutual action, the nature of which can as yet be dealt with only by conjecture.