The Education Master 1994 (4th Edition)/EDUCATIONS_MASTER_4TH_EDITION.bin/files/educnomy/halleyds/chapter.007

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******************************** CHAPTER VII ********************************
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****************************  THE FAMILIAR COMET  ***************************


     Edmond Halley was a student of the stars when he was a young man, and
he published a paper on the orbits of the planets when he was just 20 years
old.  He had traveled to the island of Helena to study the heavens where he
observed the behavior of 341 different stars, and he was elected a fellow of
the Royal Society at the age of 22.  Halley studied Arabic in order to
translate Greek works which only survived in that language.  He was
responsible for the editing of the Greek text of the conics of Apollonius of
Perga, and he paid to have Sir Isaac Newton's _Principia Mathematica_
published in 1687, some 20 years after Newton had explained gravity.  Halley
used Newton's theory of gravity to calculate the orbital path of what would
later be called "Halley's comet".  Halley first observed the comet at
6:30 A.M. on November 22nd, but its perihelion had occurred on September
14th.  Using the calculations of the comet of 1682, which were made by
Flamsteed and that he had obtained from Newton, Halley compared the paths of
the comets of 1531, 1607 and 1682.  He guessed that these were, in fact, the
same comet, and he predicted that the comet would return in 1758.

     In 1682, Louis was recognized as the supreme ruler of France.  Versailles
became the royal residence and 58,000 French Huguenots were forced into
conversion.  There was conflict between France and the Pope about Gallicanism,
and French Protestants were excluded from guilds, civil service and the king's
household.  Algiers was bombarded by the French fleet under Duquesne for
alleged acts of piracy.  Sieur de La Salle paddled down the Mississippi to
its mouth and claimed the Louisiana territory for France.  He founded St.
Louis and took possession of the Mississippi Valley.

     Emeric Tokolyi, the Hungarian patriot who had fought the Austrian
Hapsburgs and took command of all the rebel Hungarian forces in 1678, was
proclaimed King of Hungary by the Turks in 1682.  There was war between
Austria, who was allied to Poland, and the Turkish Ottoman Empire from the
arrival of Halley's comet in 1682 until 1699.  This war resulted in the
"Liberation of Hungary" with the driving out of the Turks.  Mount Etna was
active in 1682, and earthquakes destroyed the city of Catana killing some
60,000 of its inhabitants.  There were also earthquakes around Vesuvius and
a paroxysmal explosion occurred there on August 12, 1682.

     The comet's arrival marked the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great
and the death of Czar Feodor III of Russia.  Peter's sister, Sophia, became
Regent for her infant brothers, Peter and Ivan.  1682 was also the year of
the Great Charter of Pennsylvania and when the city of Philadelphia was laid
out.  On the comet's approach, England recorded intense heat as did much of
Europe.  On its departure, the weather was described as the coldest winter in
memory when the Thames River froze over.

     From the years 1756 to 1763, France was embroiled in the Seven Years War
on the side of Austria, who was fighting against Russia, and this helped the
French lose most of their colonial empire when Halley's next arrived.  The
French and Indian War in America had begun even before the Seven Years War.
For nearly a century, the French had strategically encircled the English
Colonies to the east of the Appalachian Mts. with an inland trading empire.
The French had come to occupy the Ohio Valley in an alliance with the Indians,
and they had control of the strategic forks of the Ohio River which became
the crux of the English/French rivalry.  This set the stage for the dramatic
events which would occur on the North American continent during Halley's
appearance.

     In the year 1758, prior to the arrival of Halley's comet, East Prussia
was occupied by Russia, and Frederick defeated the Russians at Zorndorf on
August 25th.  The Austrians besieged Niesse and defeated Frederick the Great
at Hochkirch on October 14, 1758.

     The first observer of Halley's comet on its next return was an amateur
astronomer.  His name was Johann Palitzsh, and he saw the comet on Christmas
night 1758 through his telescope while making a systematic search of the area
where the comet was expected to return.  This return of Halley's was not
spectacular and was not seen with the naked eye until after its perihelion
passage of March 12 or 13, 1759.

     On April 13, 1759, at Bergen near Frankfurt, the French defeated
Ferdinand of Brunswick.  The French were defeated at Crefeld on June 23rd.
The Russians went into Germany where they defeated the Prussian general
Wendell at Kay on July 23rd.  On August 1st, the French were beaten in the
Battle of Minden by Ferdinand.  The Austrians united with the Russians, and
the Austrian general Laudon defeated Frederick the Great at the Battle of
Kunersdorf on August 12th.

     In Portugal, following the Conspiracy of the Tavoras, which was against
the king of Portugal, Joseph I, and his all powerful minister, the Marquis de
Pombal, the Jesuits were expelled from the country on September 3rd.  This
was a result of their having been involved in the Tavoras conspiracy.  They
were deported to the Papal states.

     The French had control of the mouths of the St. Lawrence and the
Mississippi Rivers and sought to contain English expansion.  The British and
French were thus involved in their North American colonial struggle when the
British decided to advance against the key French stronghold at Quebec in
1759.  The British managed to evict the French from the American North.  This
was at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13th.  Quebec was
generally regarded as an impenetrable fortress at that time, but General
Wolfe managed to sail past the French defenses under the cover of darkness
with some 4,500 men.  They found their way to the Plains of Abraham where
they could set up their armaments and put Quebec under siege.

     In the morning, upon perceiving the danger of this situation, General
Montcalm took immediate action and attacked the British lines.  He took
prompt action in order to proceed before the English could fortify their
lines and set up their artillery to their advantage.  While the British were
being fired upon by the Indians and by French snipers, Montcalm had three
lines of foot soldiers march toward the English with fixed bayonets.  The
British lay somewhat hidden in the grass waiting for the advancing French.
As the French came within firing range, the British forces rose and formed a
line.  The French immediately began firing at the British line and some of
the British began to fall which caused the French to charge forward.  When
the French had come within 50 yards of the British line, the British began
firing in unison.  They marched forward a short distance and fired again
until, after only about a quarter of an hour of fighting, the battle was
over.  The French suffered about 1,400 casualties and fled from the
attacking British.  Montcalm was slain while trying to rally his troops, and
General Wolfe also died while his troops advanced toward Quebec.  The final
surrender of Quebec occurred on September 18th.

     Back in the Old World, a major earthquake struck Baalbe, Lebanon on
October 30th, and earthquakes were felt in Syria and Tripoli.  Following the
Battle of Kunersdorf, which had occurred on August 12th, the Austrians
captured Dresden, and on November 20th, Daun surrounded and captured 13,000
Prussians under the command of Fink at Maxen.  On the same day, the French
suffered a naval defeat to Sir Edward Hawke at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in
France.  Just days later, Vesuvius began erupting on November 24th and
continued until December 4th.  On the day after Vesuvius began erupting,
November 25th, George Washington and John Forbes took Fort Duquesne in the
American colonies.  It was later named Pittsburgh.

     Additionally in 1759, Mount Etna was active and King Ferdinand VI, the
second son of Philip V (the founder of the Spanish branch of the Bourbon
family) by his first wife, died and was succeeded by Charles III, the son of
Elizabeth Farnese.  Charles had been the king of the two Sicilies which he
now passed to his son Ferdinand.  Charles III was 43 when he ascended the
Spanish throne and was a scholarly and conscientious king who was regarded as
a benevolent despot by the intellectuals of his age.  He sought the
modernization of his domain and sought to restrain the Church's control over
education.


     In 1760, the year following the passage of Halley's comet, King George
II of Great Britain, the only son of King George I, died, and King George III
began his reign.  Vesuvius had paroxysmal explosions and overflowed on
February 21st.  Activity continued for several days and there was a fissure
on Mt. Somma's outerslope.

     Following a path similar to the one described in 1378, Halley's appeared
again in 1835.  Although it was dimmer than its 1759 appearance.  It was
first seen near Zeta Tauri on August 6th, through a powerful telescope at the
Collegio Romano Observatory, by Father Dumouchel and Francisco di Vico.

     Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, died on March 2, 1835.  He was
Emperor of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, as Francis I and he held the title
of Holy Roman Emperor from 1792 until 1806 when he was compelled to sign the
Treaty of Pressburg which dissolved the Holy Roman Empire.  Ferdinand I, who
was the eldest son of Francis II, became the Emperor of Austria in 1835 and
ruled until 1848.  Ferdinand I was considered very weak minded and in some
respects idiotic.  He had a delicate constitution and was subject to fits of
epilepsy.  The real power of state was, therefore, in the hands of his
ministers.

     Turkish forces landed at Tripoli and ousted its ruler which put an end
to its independence and to the Karamanli rule.  The Turks then put a Turkish
governor in charge.  This was the year of the Great Trek of the Boer (Dutch)
farmers, who loaded up their ox carts and left the Cape of Good Hope and
British domination, which caused a serious depopulation of the eastern region
of the Cape Colony.  This was in response to restrictions on slavery which
they wanted to avoid, and it resulted in the northward move of some 10,000
farmers.  In Korea, Hong-Jong became king and Rama VI (Vajiravudh) became the
ruler of Siam.  Mohammed Shah, with the support of England and Russia, took
the throne of Persia (now Iran) and Dost Mohammed became the ruler of
Afghanistan.  He took the title Amir and founded the Barakzai dynasty.  Rosas
assumed complete control of Buenos Aires, and the 12 provinces succumbed to
his rule causing the Argentine Confederation to become a reality.

     The Second Seminole War, which lasted until 1842, broke out in 1835, and
Samual Colt took out an English patent for his single-barreled pistol and
rifle.  The Colt six shooter was the weapon which changed the main advantage
the Indians had over the white men in the west.  Whereas the Indians could
carry a quill of many arrows on their backs and reload quickly onto their
bows while riding horses, the guns of the period had to be carefully and
laboriously reloaded before each shot was fired.  (It was, therefore, the
practice to carry several loaded guns which is why more people died from
accidental gun discharges while moving westward than from any other causes.)

     This was the year of the death of William Henry Ireland who was the
forger of many documents attributed to Shakespeare including the play
Vortigern.  Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on November 30,
1835, and Andrew Carnegie and Hetty Green "the Witch of Wall Street" were
also born in that year.  (Hetty Green was also known as the "richest woman in
the world.")  It was also the year of the founding of Melbourne, Australia.

     Mt. St. Helens was active, and Coseguinta in Nicaragua had the most
violent eruption in the history of the entire Western Hemisphere.  The
Coseguinta eruption occurred when Charles Darwin witnessed an eruption, which
began around midnight January 19, 1835, which he described as the volcano of
"Orsorno of Chiloe".  Aconcagua, 480 miles to the north, and Coseguinta,
which is 2,700 miles north of Aconcagua, were both active that same night,
and they were accompanied by earthquakes which were felt over 1,000 miles.
Darwin experienced the Great Valdivia earthquake of February 20, 1835 and
later saw the devastation it created in Concepcion.  Mt. St. Helens was in
eruption in March of 1835.

     On November 11th, there was an earthquake at the Moluccas Islands which
was preceded by three weeks of heavy sulphurous fog.  Halley's reached
perihelion on November 16, 1835.  Two days before reaching perihelion,
Halley's tail contracted and was not seen again for two months.  Halley's
continued to be observed into 1836, during the secession of Texas from Mexico.
Halley's was fading into the Milky Way in late February as W. Barret Travis,
commander of the Alamo, wrote:

     "I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna.
     I have sustained a continued bombardment for 24 hours and have not lost
     a man.  The enemy have demanded a surrender...  I have answered the
     summons with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the
     walls."

     The Texans lost at San Patricio on February 27th.  On March 2, 1836,
Texas had declared its independence from Mexico at the Texas Constitutional
Convention.  On March 6th, some 3,000 Mexican troops under Santa Anna
attacked the Alamo, overpowering and killing every man within an hour.  One
hundred eighty two Texans and Davy Crockett from Tennessee were among the
bodies stripped and burned in a pile in the courtyard.  "Remember the Alamo,"
perhaps America's most famous war cry, was first heard just six weeks later
at the victorious Battle of San Jacinto where a vastly outnumbered group of
Texans routed Mexican forces under Santa Anna in about 18 minutes and gained
independence from Mexico.  After March 27, 1836, Halley's dropped rapidly
below naked eye visibility.

     In 1909, on the night of September 11th or 12th, Professor Max Wolf
first detected Halley's comet on a photographic plate in Heidelberg, Germany.
Before Halley's visible return in 1910, another first class comet appeared
early in the year, and it had a perihelion on January 17th.  A strong
earthquake shock struck south Costa Rica on January 10th, and the Paos
Volcano in Costa Rica became active on January 25th.  Mount Etna was in
eruption on March 23rd, while the earth around the volcano quaked and
terrified the populace.  Villagers around the volcano carried images in
procession while crying and imploring for mercy.  A lava stream 20 feet high
and 1,500 feet wide issued from 14 openings and surpassed in size the massive
1893 eruption of Etna.  The Egyptian Premier, Buros Ghali, was assassinated
on February 20th.

     Halley's appeared again in 1910, into skies which had not yet been
overwhelmed by the electric light of modern cities, and the first naked eye
observation was made by Professor Wolf of Heidelberg, who had also made the
first photographic observation.  The comet was again difficult to see in late
February and March, because it was on the far side of the sun, away from the
earth.  It was again observed when it emerged from behind the sun on April
12, 1910 at the Yerkses observatory at William's Bay Wisconsin by professors
Frost and Bernard.  After this observation, the comet became visible to the
naked eye.  Devastating earthquake shocks struck Costa Rica on April 13th.
Some 30 shocks were felt which frightened the populace of San Juan, who
abandoned their homes and headed for the surrounding hills.  The comet
reached perihelion about April 19th or 20th.  Mark Twain, who was born in
1835 when Halley's last visited, said he would die when Halley's came again
after suffering a series of heart attacks in 1909.  He died on April 21,
1910, and on that day there was a knotting and twisting observed in the tail
of the comet.  At 7:00 P.M. on May 4th, a terrible earthquake struck Cartago
Costa Rica which killed no less than 1,500 people and left over 10,000
homeless.  It was said that the ground first rose up and then suddenly
collapsed, as if some gas had been released from an underground pocket.

     On May 6, 1910, King Edward VII, after three days of illness, died of
pneumonia just before midnight.  He was the second child of Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert and was born at Buckingham Palace on November 9, 1841.  He
was the reigning king of England and of Ireland, at the time of his death.
His sympathies, during his reign, were with the poorest of his subjects, and
the tendency of his reign was towards peace with his country and all others.
On the afternoon before his death, at about 5:00 P.M., he asked about his
horse, which was running at Kempton Park that day, and was told that it had
won.  The name of the horse was "Witch of the Air".  This occurred as
Halley's comet was passing just below the square of Pegasus.  He was
immediately succeeded by his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who then became
George V.

     A French astronomer determined, on May 10th, that the comet contained
cyanogen gas, and sensationalist news stories of the time warned of impending
calamity when the earth would pass through a small portion of the tail.  Some
claimed that the most damage would occur in the area of Japan, China and
India.  A medicine man in Port au-Prince, Haiti, was said to have made a
small fortune selling comet pills.  In Chicago, people were sealing up their
windows and others sold gas masks for protection against the end of the world.

     On May 15, 1910, several earthquakes struck in the Los Angeles area at
6:50 A.M. and as late as 7:53 in Pasadena, Riverside, Redlands, and San
Bernadino.  Several buildings on Mt. Wilson where the newly built 60 inch
reflector telescope was located were cracked, and many people who had climbed
the mountain to view the comet were alarmed and said they experienced a
sensation like sea sickness when it occurred.  In Long Beach, there was a
small tidal wave just after the shock at around 7:00 A.M.  Another shock was
felt in Riverside at noon.  (_New York Times_ , May 14, 1910, page 1.)

     On the morning of May 17th, the comet stretched across a 90 degree span
of the skies.  It was first predicted that the comet would transit the face
of the sun on May 18th, but the dust tail was highly curved by about 18
degrees and was seen again in the eastern sky on the morning of May 18th.
The comet without its tail was seen by the observatories on the evening of
the 19th.  The closest approach of the head of the comet and the earth came
around May 20th when it was about 14 million miles away.  Because the comet's
tail failed to show up in the western skies on the 20th, it was deduced that
it had lost its tail as it had done in 1835.  A meteoric shower described as
brilliant and beautiful was observed at 2:30 A.M. on May 17th, and on May
18th, there were reports of auroral displays, flashes and several meteors
before midnight.  At about noon on May 19th, some scientists monitoring
Halley's observed a horizontal rainbow, and on May 20th, a broad band of
light stretched from 120 degrees to 160 degrees along the horizon. (_Return
of Halley's Comet_ , pages 70, 71.)

     On the front page of the "New York Times" on May 19, 1910, was a story
about the observation, by many astronomers, of a large swarm of sunspots
which were seen the previous day when the sun was passing the Pleiades.  The
question of whether to attribute the auroral activity to the comet or to the
sunspots was answered differently by different astronomers.  There seemed to
be little serious speculation on whether the comet had anything to do with
the unseasonable sunspot activity.  The sunspots were seen by observatories
all over the country and were described by some as being unusually large and
by others as the largest that they had ever seen.  Other astronomers argued
that they were not the largest on record, but the general consensus amongst
them was that the spots had no connection with recent earthquakes and that
there was no connection between the comets and the sunspots.  There had
though been no sunspots observed over the preceding three months.  The
sunspots were thought to have grown from some small spots first seen around
the 15th of May when earthquakes occurred in the Los Angeles area.  On May 19,
1910, "The Chicago Daily Tribune" said that on the 18th there were about 30
spots observed and that their first observer, Father S.Brennen, professor of
astronomy at the Kenrick seminary stated:  "It simply indicates unusual
internal activity.  There is no possible connection between the comet and the
sun spots."

     In 1910, comets were not perceived to consist of huge plasma bodies
which create natural linear particle accelerators.  I find the sequence of
events which occurred before and after the comet appears to have lost its
tail to be quite suggestive.  The tail was lost when the comet was near the
sun, and the sunspots had become exceedingly large in coincidence with the
comet having crossed the position of the Pleiades.  A change in the polarity
of the interplanetary field is what is believed currently to cause the tails
of comets to break off.  It is magnetic activity on the sun which is
considered the cause of sunspots, and any interaction of the Pleiades, the
sun and the comet would likely explain sporadic sunspot activity.  Today, it
is recognized that auroral displays are the result of solar activity and that
earthquake activity is affected by solar disturbances.

     On May 22, 1910, a sharp and violent rocking of the earth was felt in
Salt Lake City, Utah, at 7:28, 8:39 and 11:24 in the morning while the comet
had still not been seen by the naked eye since its close passage with the
earth.

     Observing the comet from the largest telescope at Harvard's observatory
on May 24th, Prof. O.C. Wendell made a rather interesting discovery.  He
observed a stream of light projecting toward the southwest, somewhat towards
the sun -- while the tail itself was pointed towards the east -- away from
the sun. ("New York Times", Wednesday, May 25, 1910, page 2.)  It had been a
well established truth that the tails of comets always point away from the
sun, and this projection of light could not be explained by any existing
theory.

     A fire began in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest in northern Idaho on
April 29, 1910, but due to a lack of rain that year, it continued to grow
until President Taft ordered U.S. troops to stand by.  The fire covered an
area of three states and burned over three million acres and 6 billion board
feet of lumber before rains put it out on August 22nd.

     There was some minor activity around the Vesuvius crater in May.  There
was activity that year at the Kilauea crater on the island of Hawaii, and
following earthquakes on July 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th, Mt. Usu in Japan
erupted with its greatest activity occurring between July 25th and August 8th.
There were some earthquakes around the Oshima Volcano in Japan and some lava
flowed from its crater.  Japan annexed Korea on August 24th under the ancient
name of "Chosen", although for all practical purposes Korea had been a
protectorate of Japan since 1907.  Japan also signed an agreement with Russia
to maintain the status quo in Manchuria in 1910.

     After only two years on the throne, following the assassination of his
predecessors, a Republican revolution broke out in Portugal on October 3rd
against King Manuel II.  He was forced to abdicate the throne and flee to
England.

     In Mexico, in spite of very slow growth in the number of workers in the
last part of the 19th century and the period before 1910, there was a
tremendous increase in productivity.  Industrial workers put in 12 and 14
hour days but were only paid in scrip which had to be spent at the company
store.  Fines were levied arbitrarily and Church dues were extracted by
bosses.  Strikes were frequent due to very low wages, but the industrial
workers still were making about four times that of agrarian workers in the
villages.  In the country, the lands of small farmers were stolen by legal
and illegal means by the plutocratic cientificos.  The cientificos created a
law which deprived the peons of their source of sustenance and created a
cheap source of labor for the factories.  Much as the English Poor Laws
created a working poor with merciless controls, the peons under Diaz were
subjected to extreme deprivations for the benefit of the wealthy as Diaz
plutocratized Mexico.

     As Diaz aged, he surrounded himself with corrupt old cronies who had
sided with him when he had risen to power.  They controlled his
administration, his army and his courts, and he ruled mercilessly.  Members
of families who had opposed him found no place in his government, and their
children and relatives were likewise excluded.  There had been no serious
candidate for his office who he wasn't able to rig elections against, during
his term of office.  In his old age, there was only his vice president who
stood any real chance of succeeding him upon his death.  There had been a
long history of voting fraud and deceit in which those who voted for the
wrong candidate would lose his job, be beaten or simply disappear.

     The cientificos voiced Social Darwinistic views to justify the
oligarchy's wealth and privilege.  They sought foreign capital and foreign
settlers to develop Mexico, and adventurers flocked to make their fortunes.
There was economic growth, without economic development, and dependence on
foreign capital which controlled Mexico's resources and industries.  Also,
due to new levels of productivity, Mexican products had become dependent on
export and foreign markets.  When the worldwide depression of 1907 caused
profits to dry up, land values then dropped and sent banks who had loaned to
large landholders into bankruptcy.  The landholders' loss of credit badly
hurt other merchants and industries.

     Francisco Madero was a spiritualist who came from a branch of a great
northern landed family.  He became the leader of the liberal Anti-
Reelectionist campaign and was imprisoned on June 13, 1910.  This occurred
after he entered Mexico City on June 7th, and on the morning of his arrival,
an earthquake shook Mexico City for 14 minutes.  His campaign had reached
religious proportions and there was a tremendous following amongst the common
people of the country.  His arrest came just before the election, but rumors
of his escape and call to revolution began circulating in November.  The
people of the countryside armed themselves with anything they could find, and
countless small strikes soon blossomed into an armed resistance.

     Emelio Zapata was then conducting guerrilla operations in defiance of
attempts to steal villagers' lands by the Hospital hacienda in Morelos,
Mexico to the south.  The haciendas were then taking communal lands, which
had been established by land grants back in the early days of the Spaniards,
from the campesinos of Morelos.  The lands which were being stolen by the
haciendas had been used mostly for the growing of corn by the peasants, but
the owners of the haciendas were planting the fields with sugar cane.  The
streams which fed the farmlands were diverted, and those who opposed were
humiliated, killed, jailed or sent off to penal slavery.  By 1910, just 30
haciendas controlled 62 percent of the land in the state of Morelos and
virtually all of the productive soil.

     A hero of legendary proportions to the oppressed, Zapata, had a huge
following amongst the people of Morelos.  As a youth, he was a master
horseman although his ancestors had worked the land for generations.  He had
lived in "la capital", Mexico City, where he handled horses for a rich family
and had been terribly depressed that the stalls of the horses put all the
homes of the working people of the state of Morelos to shame.  He spoke both
Spanish and Nahuatl, although he couldn't read -- not many in Mexico at this
time could -- but this didn't detract from his innate intelligence.  "Seek
justice from tyrannical governments" he said, "not with your hat in your
hands, but with a rifle in your fist".  He led his followers to the cry of
"Tierra y Libertad" -- land and liberty.  A brilliant tactician, he managed
incredibly to survive which was due largely to the success of the Madero
revolution.

     In the U.S., in the November election of 1910, the Democrats gained
control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 14 years.  The
Union of South Africa became a dominion within the British Empire with Louis
Botha as premier.  China abolished slavery and there was a cholera epidemic
in Russia.

     The last telescopic observation of Halley's was on May 23, 1911.




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