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Show RACE WITH THE COMET. Tha Comet Will Coma Near the Earth Next Monday, bnt It Will Kst Strike It. New York, Nov. 22. Professor Jacoby is not prepared to say that the comet now visible visi-ble is identical with that discovered by Biela, the 'Austrian officer, over sixty years ago, although Professor Lewis Boss of the Dudley observatory and Professor Pickering of Harvard Har-vard college observatory believe it is. There is some difference of opinion about their orbits or-bits being identical. Biela' s comet has not been recognized since 1853, but the recurrence recur-rence of its period leads to the belief that it is identical with that now visible to the naked eye in the constellation Andromeda. Andro-meda. According to Prof. Holmes, who first saw the present comet, as well as Prof. Boss, it is likely to make a very close approach to the earth on tho morning of November 28. In 1832, when Biela's comet was seen for the second ttme, it was calculated that a colllslonjbetween It and this sphere could not be averted, and much anxiety was caused in consequence, but the comet passed the point of intersection of its orbit and that of the earth fonr weeks before the latter, and the nearest that these two bodies were to each other at any time was 15,000,000 miles. There is no probability that the comet and the earth will come within appreciable distance dis-tance of each other now, even if it should turn out to be Biela's, for, according to Prof. Boss, the earth will this time beat the comet at the crossing of their respective orbits by eight hours. The comet is now double the size it was ten days ago, and occupies more than twice the amount of space in arc. The disbelief of some astronomers that this is Biela's comet it based upon the supposed destruction of the same in 1886. In November Novem-ber of that year there was a wonderful meteoric me-teoric shower, and it was concluded that Biela's comet was no more. |