As though to compensate for this disappointment, the comet at its next appearance exhibited some entirely new phenomena. It split itself into two comets, in such a manner that the performance was visible to the telescopic observer. Both of these comets had nuclei and short tails, and they alternately varied in brightness, sometimes one, then the other, having the advantage. They traveled on at a distance of about 156,000 miles from each other, with parallel tails, and with a sort of friendly communication in the form of a faint arc of light, which extended as a kind of bridge, from one to the other. Besides this, the one which was first the brighter, then the fainter, and finally the brighter again, threw out two additional tails, one of which extended lovingly towards its companion. The time of return in 1852 was of course anxiously expected by astronomers, and careful watch was kept for the wanderers. They came again at the calculated time, still separated as before. They were again due in 1859, in 1866, and, finally, at about the end of last November, or the beginning of the present month. Though eagerly looked for by astronomers in all parts of the civilized world, they have been seen no more since 1852. What, then, has become of them? Have they further subdivided? Have they crumbled into meteoric dust? Have they blazed or boiled into thin air? or have they been dragged by some interfering gravitation into another orbit? The last supposition is the most improbable, as none of the visible inhabitants of space have come near enough to disturb them. The possibility of a dissolution into smaller fragments is suggested by the fact that, instead of the original single comet, or the two fragments, meteoric showers have fallen towards the earth at the time when it has crossed the orbit of the original comet, and these showers have radiated from that part of the heavens in which the comet should have appeared. Such was the case with the magnificent display of November 27th, and astronomers are inclining more and more to the idea that comets and meteors have a common origin—the meteors are little comets, or comets are big meteors. In the latest of the “Monthly Notices,” of the Royal Astronomical Society, published last week, is a paper by Mr. Proctor, in which he expands the theory expounded three years ago by an author whom your correspondent’s modesty prevents him from naming, viz., that the larger planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—are minor suns, ejecting meteoric matter from them by the operation of forces similar to those producing the solar prominences.