The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 42, 1670-1700 / Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

by Unknown

Chapter IX

[This chapter describes a remarkable comet which was visible in the islands from the middle of November, 1680, to February 14, 1681; and relates at much length the condition of the Chinese empire at that time, and the founding of Augustinian missions therein. Of this matter, we retain only the description of the comet and its course.]

The frightful comet [was] so large that it extended, like a very wide belt, from one side of the horizon to the other, with but little difference [in its breadth], causing in the darkness of the night nearly as much light as the moon in her quadrature. The course of this comet was, like those of the planets, a rapid one from east to west, so that every day it disappeared and was hidden. The other movement was a retrograde one, so that it moved from west to east three or four degrees, and sometimes more than five, each day, at times less. This movement lasted from November 20 until February 14, 1681, in which time it passed through the signs of Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries—passing the equator from the south, from the handle of Libra and Ophiuchus [Serpentario]. It crossed the ecliptic and southern solstice, and through the constellation Antinous to the tail of the Dolphin, to the tail of the Little Horse [i.e., Equellus], and the breast of Pegasus, and thence to the head of Andromeda; and it passed over the equator at 310° from the point of Aries. Its magnitude was frightful, for its circumference and head [i.e., of the coma and nucleus] was two thousand one hundred and four leguas; and its magnitude was equal to that of Mercury, which is nineteen times larger than the earth. Its tail reached, on January 8, an extent of seventy-five degrees, which at its distance made 1,437,919 leguas. It was a celestial comet, and not elemental;[42] and according to its parallax it was in the celestial quarter distant from us 1,150 semidiameters or halves of the line which we regard as crossing the center[43]—which, according to the measurement of Father José Zaragoza, a distinguished mathematician of the Society of Jesus, are 1,153,000 leguas, which was its apogee. Its movement was 7,458 times as swift as the velocity of a cannon-ball weighing twelve libras, which, according to those who are curious, travels in each minute, or sixtieth part of an hour, two-thirds of a legua. This comet was visible throughout the world, giving rise to much discussion over its effects, which in truth were generally very evil. On the second of January it passed the parallel of our zenith. These observations were made by Father Eusebius Kino,[44] a German, of the Society of Jesus—a mathematician of the university of Ingolstad, a missionary in California—while he was in Méjico; and he printed them, with a dedication to our Lady of Guadalupe.