4. The earth is cleft open; the fiords are made, and the trap-rocks burst forth.
5. The rain pours down.
6. There is a season of floods.
When we turn to the Greek legends, as recorded by one of their most ancient writers, Hesiod, we find the coming of the comet clearly depicted.
We shall see here, and in many other legends, reference to the fact that there was more than one monster in the sky. This is in accordance with what we now know to be true of comets. They often appear in pairs or even triplets. Within the past few years we have seen Biela's comet divide and form two separate comets, pursuing
[1. "Mythology of the British Druids," p. 226.]
{p. 136}
their course side by side. When the great comet of 1811 appeared, another of almost equal magnitude followed it. Seneca informs us that Ephoras, a Greek writer of the fourth century before Christ, had recorded the singular fact of a comet's separation into two parts.
"This statement was deemed incredible by the Roman philosopher. More recent observations of similar phenomena leave no room to question the historian's veracity."[1]
The Chinese annals record the appearance of three comets--one large and two smaller ones--at the same time, in the year 896 of our era.