N00277:44
Kometographia. Or A discourse concerning comets; wherein the nature of blazing stars is enquired…
Kometographia. Or A discourse concerning comets; wherein the nature of blazing stars is enquired into: with an historical account of all the comets which have appeared from the beginning of the world unto this present year, M.DC.LXXXIII. : Expressing the place in the heavens, where they were seen, their motion, forms, duration; and the remarkable events which have followed in the world, so far as they have been by learned men observed. : As also two sermons occasioned by the late blazing stars. / By Mr. Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Three lines of Scripture texts]Kometographia. Or A discourse concerning comets; wherein the nature of blazing stars is enquired into: with an historical account of all the comets which have appeared from the beginning of the world unto this present year, M.DC.LXXXIII. : Expressing the place in the heavens, where they were seen, their motion, forms, duration; and the remarkable events which have followed in the world, so far as thay have been by learned men observed. : As also two sermons occasioned by the late blazing stars. / By Mr. Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Three lines of Scripture texts]
printed by S.G. for S.S. i.e, 1683
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Learned Men of these later times, wherein light in things natural as well as divine hath been admirably discovered, have by the help of Mathematical Instruments made ocular demonstrations, that Comets are far above this Aery Heaven, wherein Animals live and move.
Kepler observed the Blazing Star which was seen A.D. 1618. to be at its first appearance three times as high as the Moon. Hevelius cthen whom no man was more industrious and accurate in observing the Comet, A. D. 1652. saith that January the first it was as high as the sphere of Mercury, January the sixth as high as Venus, Jan. 8. as high as Mars, January 9. as high as the Orb of Jupiter. It was distant from the Earth 154•4. S T. and not only the more subtle Doctrine of Parallaxes demonstrates that Blazing Stars are beyond the aery Region, but other considerations also evince it, e. g. that of its continuing so many hours above the Horizon, and being observed by persons in Countries remote one from another at the same hour, to be in the same constellation or place in the Heavens. Let us (saith Hevelius) suppose the supreme Region of the Air to be 20 German miles (or 80 Italic miles) off,2 and yet that is no doubt higher then the Air is extended; for the tops of some Mountains are higher then the Clouds, so as that the Air doth not go beyond them: If men ascend the top of Mount Olympus in Asia, they die for want of air, being out of their Elements, ⟨p. 5⟩just as Fishes die when lifted above the water; But supposing it to be 80 miles distant from the Earth, and the Comet to be there, it would not have been above the Horizon, more then two hours; when as it was so 17 hours. And at the very hour when dHevelius did at Dantzick observe it to be in the Star near the foot of Persius, Bullialdus in Paris saw it in the very same place, whenas, if it had been no higher then the supreme Region of the air, it would have appeared to Bullialdus (being then in Paris) in Hercules and not in Persius, as it did to those in Dantzick Nor would a Blazing Star be observed by all the World at once (where the Stars under which it moves, are seen) if it were not above the air. The opinion of Panaetius, who thought that a Comet was a mere Emphasis or Parelion, proceeding from the reflection of some other Star, is solidly refuted, from this consideration, that a Parelion is not seen in all Countries at once; The same argument proveth that Comets have their existence above the air.