“With the exception of a sketch by Miss Mary Proctor in New York City, and a newspaper account by Professor D. P. Todd of Amherst (whose observation seemed to refer to May 16th), I have seen no reference from northern observers to the second, fainter and broader tail shown in my drawings of May 17 and 18, south of the bright beam and separated from it by a distinct dark space, perhaps ten degrees wide. The head of the comet was of course invisible, being below the horizon.” This was all the more pleasing to the writer, as doubts had been expressed in no uncertain terms by a well-known authority, according to the following statement published in an afternoon paper. “Some one thinks she saw the comet in the eastern sky, when it is really in the west.” One can imagine the anxious time experienced while awaiting confirmation of the observation, but it came in due course from Yerkes, Lick, Argentine Republic, South Africa, and the writer felt rewarded for the many dreary waits in the tower during the “wee sma’ hours” since May 1. On the morning of May 20, the writer again watched from the _Times_ tower, in the hope of seeing some straggling streamers trailing along the sky, denoting the presence of the comet. Between half past two and a quarter past three a ghostly apparition resembling a slender band of light was seen extending upward, though almost parallel with the northeastern horizon. It seemed to rest on a darker band of luminous haze beneath. Surely this was the last fragment of the train of the comet, outlined faintly against the dark void of space. That same morning Professor Barnard at Yerkes detected a hazy luminous streak about five degrees broad extending from Aquilæ to the east and onward toward Alpha Pegasi. “This resembled the comet’s tail,” recorded Professor Barnard, “but was doubtless a strip of haze. I looked at it several times, taking it for a strip of haze, but it did not seem to move. There were masses of moving haze overhead toward the north. To all appearance it looked like the comet’s tail of the mornings of May 18 and 19. I cannot be certain that it was not haze, but it was a singular coincidence of position, appearance, etc., if it was. It remained visible for fully fifteen or twenty minutes.” [Illustration: COMET 1861, JULY 2, AS SEEN AND DRAWN BY R. A. PROCTOR The tail of the comet was near the earth, which passed through it on this occasion ] The train may have been fan-like, as in the case of the comet of 1861, discovered on May 13, by Mr. John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, already referred to in the chapter on “Comet-hunting as a Hobby.” In my father’s book, _Mysteries of Time and Space_, he records as follows his view of that comet in connection with the drawing here given: