La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1681.] THE COMET. 213The sky was clear, and as night came on thetravellers saw a prodigious comet blazing above thisscene of desolation. On that night, it was chillingwith a superstitious awe the hamlets of New Englandand the gilded chambers of Versailles ;but it is characteristicof La Salle, that, beset as he was with perilsand surrounded with ghastly images of death, hecoolly notes down the phenomenon, not as a portentousmessenger of war and woe, but rather as anobject of scientific curiosity. 1He found his three men safely ensconced upontheir island, where they were anxiously looking forhis return. After collecting a store of half-burntcorn from the ravaged granaries of the Illinois, thewhole party began to ascend the river, and on thesixth of January reached the junction of the Kankakeewith the northern branch. On their way downwardthey had descended the former stream; they nowchose the latter, and soon discovered, by the marginthem, say that they left the village on the second of December,and returned to it on the eleventh, having left the mouth of theriver on the seventh.1This was the " Great Comet of 1680." Dr. B. A. Gould writesme: "It appeared in December, 1680, and was visible until thelatter part of February, 1681, being especially brilliant in January."It was said to be the largest ever seen. By observations upon it,Newton demonstrated the regular revolutions of comets around thesun. " No comet," it is said, " has threatened the earth with anearer approach than that of 1680." ( Winthrop on Comets, LectureII. p. 44.) Increase Mather, in his Discourse concerning Comets,printed at Boston in 1683, says of this one :" Its appearance waivery terrible ; the Blaze ascended above 60 Degrees almost to iUZenith." Mather thought it fraught with terrific portent to thenations of the earth.