from several changes they dread in the celestial bodies. For instance, that the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up. That the face of the sun, will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more light to the world. That the earth, very narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for one and thirty years hence, will probably destroy us. For, if in its perihelion, it should approach within a certain degree of the sun, (as by their calculations they have reason to dread) it will receive a degree of heat ten thousand times more intense, than that of red hot glowing iron; and, in its absence from the sun, carry a blazing tail ten hundred thousand and fourteen miles long; through which if the earth should pass at the distance of one hundred thousand miles from the nucleus, or main body of the comet, it must in its passage be set on fire, and reduced to ashes. That the sun, daily spending its rays without any nutriment to supply them, will at last be wholly consumed and annihilated; which must be attended with the destruction of this earth, and of all the planets that receive their light from it[1].
They are so perpetually alarmed with the apprehensions of these, and the like impending dangers, that they can neither sleep quietly in their beds, nor have any relish for the common pleasures and amusements of life. When they meet an acquaintance in the morning, the first question is about the sun's
- ↑ All these were suppositions of persons eminent in their time for mathematical knowledge.
