PROFESSOR E. E. BARNARD _Frontispiece_ _facing page_ DAYLIGHT COMET 1910 A 8 THE COMET-SEEKER ON THE ROOF OF THE YERKES OBSERVATORY, AT WILLIAMS BAY, WISCONSIN 18 COMET OF DONATI 42 PHOTOGRAPH OF MOREHOUSE COMET, 1908 C 68 JOHN TEBBUTT, NOTED COMET-HUNTER OF WINDSOR, N. S. W. 70 THE GREAT DAYLIGHT COMET, SEPTEMBER, 1882 80 PHOTOGRAPH OF A BRIGHT METEOR, BY DR. W. J. S. LOCKYER 84 COMET 1893 IV BROOKS 92 HALLEY’S COMET AND THE PLANET VENUS 94 HALLEY’S COMET 110 COMET 1861, JULY 2, AS SEEN AND DRAWN BY R. A. PROCTOR 118 HALLEY’S COMET 124 THE ORBIT OF HALLEY’S COMET 126 THE SOUTHERN COMET OF JANUARY, 1887 144 OUTH LODGE, KEITHICK, WHERE THE STRATHMORE METEORITE FELL THROUGH THE ROOF, DECEMBER 3, 1917 200 STRATHMORE METEORITE, ESSENDY FRAGMENT 202 _Preface_ This book contains an account of some of the quaint ideas entertained regarding comets, meteors, and shooting stars in the days of long ago, when they were looked upon with apprehension and fear. Their appearance was supposed to herald coming disaster, until Science lifted the veil which obscured their real meaning from view. As soon as it was known that these visitants from the star-depths were composed of such airy texture that, as Sir John Herschel once expressed it, they could be easily packed in a portmanteau, tail and all, the fear of comets was at an end, and their appearance is nowadays hailed with delight. Possibly no one appreciated this fact more strongly than the late Professor Barnard of the Yerkes Observatory, at Williams Bay, Wisconsin; and as Professor Frost, the director of the observatory, remarks, in a letter granting the author a permit for the use of several photographs of comets taken by him, “it is most appropriate that your book should be dedicated to him, as he certainly had an ardor in observing and studying comets that has seldom been equaled.”