ceived. That the angle of deviation is less near the comet's head, but greater towards the other end of the tail; and that because the convex side of the tail regards the parts from which the deviation is made, and which lie in a right line drawn out infinitely from the sun through the comet's head. And that the tails that are long and broad, and shine with a stronger light, appear more resplendent and more exactly defined on the convex than on the concave side. Upon which accounts it is plain that the phænomena of the tails of comets depend upon the motions of their heads, and by no means upon the places of the heavens in which their heads are seen; and that, therefore, the tails of comets do not proceed from the refraction of the heavens, but from their own heads, which furnish the matter that forms the tail. For, as in our air, the smoke of a heated body ascends either perpendicularly if the body is at rest, or obliquely if the body is moved obliquely, so in the heavens, where all bodies gravitate towards the sun, smoke and vapour must (as we have already said) ascend from the sun, and either rise perpendicularly if the smoking body is at rest, or obliquely if the body, in all the progress of its motion, is always leaving those places from which the upper or higher parts of the vapour had risen before; and that obliquity will be least where the vapour ascends with most velocity, to wit, near the smoking body, when that is near the sun. But, because the obliquity varies, the column of vapour will be incurvated; and because the vapour in the preceding sides is something more recent, that is, has ascended something more late from the body, it will therefore be something more dense on that side, and must on that account reflect more light, as well as be better defined. I add nothing concerning the sudden uncertain agitation of the tails of comets, and their irregular figures, which authors sometimes describe, because they may arise from the mutations of our air, and the motions of our clouds, in part obscuring those tails; or, perhaps, from parts of the Via Lactea, which might have been confounded with and mistaken for parts of the tails of the comets as they passed by.
But that the atmospheres of comets may furnish a supply of vapour great enough to fill so immense spaces, we may easily understand from the rarity of our own air; for the air near the surface of our earth possesses a space 850 times greater than water of the same weight; and therefore a cylinder of air 850 feet high is of equal weight with a cylinder of water of the same breadth, and but one foot high. But a cylinder of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere is of equal weight with a cylinder of water about 33 feet high: and, therefore, if from the whole cylinder of air the lower part of 850 feet high is taken away, the remaining upper part will be of equal weight with a cylinder of water 32 feet high: and from thence (and by the hypothesis, confirmed by many experiments, that the compression of air is as the weight of the incumbent atmosphere, and
