Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization 9781633888562, 9781633888579, 1633888568

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Comet Madness

How the 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization

Richard J. Goodrich

An imprint of Globe Pequot, the trade division of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Blvd., Ste. 200 Lanham, MD 20706 www.rowman.com Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK Copyright © 2023 by Richard J. Goodrich All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Goodrich, Richard J., 1962– author. Title: Comet madness : how the 1910 return of Halley’s comet (almost) destroyed civilization / Richard J. Goodrich. Other titles: How the 1910 return of Halley’s comet (almost) destroyed civilization Description: Lanham : Prometheus, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “In Comet Madness, author and historian Richard J. Goodrich examines the 1910 appearance of Halley’s Comet and the ensuing frenzy sparked by media manipulation, bogus science, and outright deception. The result is a fascinating and illuminating narrative history that underscores how we behave in the face of potential calamity - then and now”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022024437 (print) | LCCN 2022024438 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633888562 (cloth) | ISBN 9781633888579 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Halley’s comet—History. Classification: LCC QB723.H2 G66 2023 (print) | LCC QB723.H2 (ebook) | DDC 523.6/42—dc23/eng/20220606 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022024437 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022024438 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/ NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Mary, forever. And for Richard Lillis Goodrich, 1938–2022.

Eight things a comet always brings Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Dire Things. —old German rhyme Nothing can be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. —Thomas Jefferson

Contents

vii ix

Readers Note Introduction Chapter   1: Hairy Stars: Fear and Loathing in the Heavens Chapter   2: From Astrology to Astronomy Chapter   3: Whither the Comet? Chapter   4: The Fabulous Flammarion Chapter   5: A Dangerous Tail Chapter   6: The Unexpected Visitor Chapter   7: Cyanogen Gas! Chapter   8: From Science to Science Fiction Chapter   9: Aetna and the Wheel of Anxiety Chapter 10: Apocalypse Now Chapter 11: The Death of Kings Chapter 12: Rationality Won’t Keep out the Rain Chapter 13: Up on a Roof Chapter 14: Cosmic Death Ray Chapter 15: Hysteria’s High-Water Mark Chapter 16: Syzygy Chapter 17: The Case of the Missing Tail Chapter 18: And We (Mostly) Lived Happily Ever After

1 11 25 39 51 67 81 95 111 125 137 151 167 179 193 211 225 235

Afterword Notes Acknowledgments

245 251 269

Readers Note

Comet Madness is based upon newspapers, magazine articles, and books written in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The authors of these works were not always concerned about accurate spelling or grammar. Believing that quotations littered with sics are tedious for the reader, I have taken the liberty of correcting spelling errors and smoothing the syntax of quotations drawn from the primary sources. I have been extremely careful to ensure that my light emendations have left the sense of the quotations untouched. Occasionally, when I felt a quotation should appear in all of its ungrammatical glory, I have deployed sic to signal a deviation from twenty-first century usage.

Introduction

The posse raced south from the tiny town of Aline, Oklahoma. Seven horses galloped beneath the frosty stars, their hooves pulverizing the sunbaked soil. The animals slowed to ford the Cimarron River and then, with Alfalfa County Sheriff Hughes in the lead, resumed their frantic dash. Ahead, the soft edges of the Gloss Mountains eclipsed the low-hanging stars. The riders turned into a dry canyon. Hughes waved his men forward, urged his horse to a final burst of speed. Figures circled a bonfire. Forty people—men, women, children, members of the Select Followers—had gathered in this lonely spot. Their leader, Henry Heinman, clutched a long butcher’s knife. The steel blade reflected firelight, an orange spike in his right hand. That morning, Heinman had revealed God’s final message to his followers: the world would end when Halley’s tail touched the planet. The heavens and earth would roll up like a scroll. All life would be destroyed—unless . . . Unless, imitating the rites premodern communities once employed to appease malevolent deities, Heinman and the faithful offered a propitiatory sacrifice to avert God’s wrath. The Select Followers cast lots; God chose sixteen-year-old Jane Warfield, a maiden of Aline. And there she stood, centered among the dancers. A flowing white gown hung from her shoulders; white roses wreathed her head. A length of rough hemp rope secured her wrists behind her back, encouraging constancy. She raised her chin. Heinman gripped the knife and stepped forward.

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Comet Madness

“Stop them,” shouted Sheriff Hughes, touching spurs to his winded horse’s sides. And above the clearing, silver against the blackened sky, Halley’s Comet hung like a Paleolithic flint blade set against humanity’s throat.

d

What a difference seventy-five years can make in the history of a nation. In 1910, Halley’s Comet, the most famous celestial object in this corner of the universe, returned to the inner solar system. An observer, riding on the comet and peering at our planet through a high-powered telescope, would have been startled by the remarkable scientific and technological advances that had occurred since the comet’s previous visit. In 1835, humans still employed technology that wouldn’t have surprised a Roman; seventy-five years later, the world had grown unrecognizable. The Wright brothers flew from Kitty Hawk; a transatlantic cable passed messages between the continents; electric bulbs lit the mansions of the wealthy; Henry Ford’s Model T automobile was displacing horsedrawn carriages on city streets. Theoretical science, which underpinned these technological marvels, had also advanced briskly: Gregor Mendel deduced the laws of genetics; Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays; Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity. The world’s thinkers made stunning leaps and laid the foundation for the worldaltering advances of the twentieth century. Yet, despite the astonishing pace of scientific discovery and the demonstrable benefit of technological innovation, it took surprisingly little to drive some Americans back to the fears and superstitions of a prescientific world. When astronomers announced that the earth would fly through the comet’s tail—a tail that contained deadly cyanogen gas— many people succumbed to terror. For thousands of years, civilizations had regarded the comet as a portent, an omen of approaching disaster. The sudden flaring of a comet in the heavens signified the deaths of kings, the overthrow of nations, earthquakes, famines, and floods. Perhaps the comet would strike the earth, shattering the solid rock underfoot and destroying our home planet. Was it not possible, argued some, that the comet presaged the return of Christ and the end of God’s flawed creation? x

Introduction 

Comet madness. Astronomers attempted to allay the growing fears; Halley’s Comet was a regular visitor to the earth’s neighborhood, not a divine death sentence. Edmond Halley had demonstrated this two hundred years earlier. The comet had slipped past the earth many times without harming the planet. There was nothing to fear when the comet returned in 1910. Many found these reassurances unconvincing. Despite seventy-five years of scientific progress—or possibly because this rapid growth had produced alienation, disorientation, and marginalization—skeptics rejected the assurances of the astronomers. Advanced thought contended with deep-seated dread. The thin ice of modernity glazed the darker waters of primordial superstition. As the comet approached, newspapers and magazines stoked the terror. Disasters build reporters’ careers. Although scientists judged the approaching comet harmless, imaginative reporters and editors believed something could be made of it. They thrust a small story, one that should have been consigned to the Sunday science supplements, onto the front page. Armageddon loomed—maybe. Threatened terrors sparked real terror, creating fresh stories to report. Newspaper sales picked up as the publishers tapped the growing alarm their stories produced. The editors offered balanced coverage, placing the predictions of reputable scientists in parallel columns with the sensationalist prophecies of less-reputable thinkers. When cranks and crackpots failed to generate enough newsworthy content, reporters fabricated stories, suggesting a national panic and a world rapidly fraying along its seams. The traditional charlatans—astrologers, mediums, psychics, ministers, and con artists—also exploited the nervous tension. They grew fat on unease, feeding on the gullibility of their neighbors. Diviners scrutinized the skies for destiny’s clues and foresaw floods, widespread destruction, and the toppling of nations. Preachers threatened their flocks with God’s approaching judgment. The comet, one of the Bible’s “stars of the sky” that fell upon the earth, signaled the return of Christ and the destruction of the present age.1 Con men marketed “comet pills,” tablets of unknown provenance that allegedly protected one from the toxic cyanogen gas. Hucksters offered “comet insurance” policies that promised to pay beneficiaries in the event of a comet-related death. xi

Comet Madness

Comet madness marked the point at which rationality departed the room. The sober assessment of scientists, the repeated assurances of the world’s greatest astronomers failed to convince everyone. Many refused to believe that the comet offered no threat. They preferred the esoteric wisdom of the conspiracy theory. Scientists made mistakes and were no better at predicting the future than the publisher of a weather almanac that offered long-range forecasts based on astrology. As the comet approached, some took their lives, preferring a selfinflicted death over the slow choking agony of the comet’s cyanogen tail. Others, as the final night arrived, huddled in their homes, seeing in the approaching comet the vision expressed by the author of the Apocalypse of John: “I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death.”2

xii

Chapter One

Hairy Stars Fear and Loathing in the Heavens

Long, long ago, when white men were still savages who dwelt in caves, patient stargazers in China and Chaldea studied the motions of this comet. —Edwin Emerson, Comet Lore For our ancestors, the heavens represented divine stability and regularity. The starry vault was the realm of perfection, a domain of certainty. There, trapped in nested crystalline spheres, the moon, sun, and stars circled the earth in eternal cycles, a celestial clockwork whose motion was both immutable and unending. The ancient astronomers— Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians, and Chinese—tracked, recorded, and predicted stellar movements, serenely confident in the eternal round. Compare that fixed perfection to life below the stars, on earth where existence was transitory, frequently brutish, and always unpredictable. War, pestilence, and chaotic upheaval ensured that nothing lasted forever. Tomorrow threatened today’s prosperity. Instability was the rule rather than the exception. Some men understood this intuitively; great reverses schooled others. Croesus, king of Lydia, considered himself the happiest of all men. He ruled a stable kingdom, enjoying great riches and ample luxuries. When 1

Comet Madness

Solon of Athens visited, Croesus gave the famous wise man a palace tour, pointing out the overstuffed treasury rooms that certified his blessedness. “Surely I am the happiest man on earth,” said the king. Solon laughed. “I cannot support that opinion until I hear that you have ended your life happily,” he replied. “For often God gives men a taste of happiness before plunging them into ruin.”1 A disgusted Croesus dismissed Solon. What did that man know about happiness? Months later, weighted with Persian chains, a captive of the great Cyrus, Croesus had ample opportunity to ponder the wise man’s words: “No one, while he lives, is happy.”2 The wise Solon understood what Croesus refused to consider: earthly life was fraught with peril and unexpected reverses; unanticipated disaster stalked good fortune. Invading soldiers harvested the crops that had greened the king’s spring fields. Misfortune waltzed with success, and no human could predict their partner when the music stopped. The heavens, on the other hand, were fixed, stable. Spread across the vault of the sky, anchored above a frosty ether that no mortal action could disturb, constellations rotated slowly with the changing seasons, an unvarying clockwork advancing with grace and complete predictability. The sun, moon, and planets followed well-established tracks across the zodiac. Year after year, generation after generation, the heavens provided comfort to the nations, a symbol of the tranquil perfection lacking on earth. But were the skies truly immune to change? At odd and variable times, a dim spot—a heavenly blemish—flared against the star field. The imperfection brightened, gaining prominence with each passing night. As the apparition approached the sun, it unfurled a tail. At peak size, this tail could stretch halfway across the night sky, a silver banner of fire towed by a flaming head. In the Greek world, women unbound their hair when mourning the dead. Noting the resemblance, the Greeks gave these celestial aberrations the name that has endured in the West: kometes, “hairy.” Although the western world celebrates the prowess of the early Mediterranean peoples, the Chinese were the most sophisticated observers of astronomical phenomena in antiquity. They called comets hui xing, “broom stars,” a reference to the fact that the comet resembled a peasant’s broom trailing a long tail of cosmic straw. 2

Hairy Stars

Centuries before the birth of Christ, the Chinese postulated a link between heaven and earth. If the gods were pleased with the land’s rulers, if justice and sober administration characterized the reign of an emperor, then they would signify their pleasure with a stable sky. On the other hand, displeasure was also mirrored overhead. The heavens were a celestial indicator, a divine report card that assessed an emperor’s performance. The Chinese employed men who were part astronomer, part astrologer to monitor the skies and interpret the messages written there. These experts read tian wen, the “patterns of heaven,” and translated the signs of the gods for the ruling class. Two early works, the Huainanzi (Book of the master of Huai nan, ca. 139 BC) and the Shi ji (Records of the Grand Historian, ca. 100 BC) discussed the interpretation of tian wen.3 By comparing the relative positions of the five visible planets, imperial astronomers claimed the ability to predict major wars, political upheavals, and other disasters for the state.4 Terrestrial disturbances were prefigured by conjunctions between the planets. The appearance of a comet, however, foreshadowed disruption. They were, as the Huainanzi noted, “Portents of Heaven.”5 Comets were the antithesis of the stable, predictable stars and planets. They appeared unexpectedly and traced erratic courses across the celestial dome. These anomalous objects violated the supreme harmony of the heavens. Like an industrious old woman cleaning the bamboo slats of a porch, the broom star swept out the old and cleared space for the new. The comet signified change—often of an emperor or his dynasty.6 Comets fascinated the Chinese. Believing that they were among the most significant celestial apparitions, imperial astronomers compiled careful records of their appearances. The oldest comet recorded in Chinese sources appeared in 613 BC.7 Here, in the Spring and Autumn Annals, Chinese astronomers logged the approach of a broom star appearing among the stars of the “Northern Dipper,” the constellation that modern astronomers label Ursa Major.8 Not only did Chinese astronomers note the arrival and movements of comets, but they also created a sophisticated catalog to describe the appearance of the heavenly messengers. In 1976, archaeologists excavated 3

Comet Madness

the number-three tomb at Mawangdui, near modern Changsha in Hunan Province. Among the classical philosophical works, they found a catalog of astronomical phenomena. The silk-painted record classified twenty-nine different categories of comets along with an interpretation of each type. A comet with four branches in its tail signified a worldwide plague; a three-tailed comet foretold ruin for the state. If a comet’s tail curved to the right, the people could expect “a small war.”9 The Chinese did not record the appearances because they were interested in working out the principles governing cometary orbits. Their observations supported the interpretation of tian wen, tying cometary appearances to terrestrial events and establishing the basis for a sophisticated “portentology.”10 By correlating heavenly manifestations—eclipses, unexpected meteor showers, and comets—with events on earth, they decoded the warnings from the gods. Astronomical phenomena presaged future events.

d

Although the West trailed China in sophistication and record keeping, the Romans also believed that comets were divine portents. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural Histories, expressed the traditional view: “A comet is terrifying and difficult to appease. One appeared during the civil unrest that arose at the time of Octavian’s consulship and again in the war between Pompey and Julius Caesar. In our day, a comet appeared when Emperor Claudius was poisoned and the empire was handed over to Nero. During Nero’s reign, a comet was constantly present—nearby and threatening.”11 Civil disturbances, the overthrow of an established government, and the death of emperors: the Roman interpretation of this portent differed little from the Chinese. There was one important exception. A great comet appeared in July 44 BC, blazing above Rome as Octavian—the future Emperor Augustus—hosted the ludi uictoriae Caesaris, the funeral games honoring his adopted father, the recently assassinated Julius Caesar. The Roman historian Suetonius described the people’s reaction:

4

Hairy Stars

Caesar was numbered among the gods, supported by an official decree and the consensus of the common people. For when his heir, Augustus, held the first of the games intended to celebrate his apotheosis, a comet appeared for seven straight days, rising about the eleventh hour. The Romans believed it was Caesar’s spirit, which had been taken to heaven. This is why a star is placed on the crown of his statue’s head.12 Octavian encouraged this belief. Being the heir of a god strengthened his political position in the early days of his long march toward absolute power. Caesar’s deification and the ratifying appearance of the comet figured prominently in Octavian’s propaganda: the comet appeared on coins and a star was carved on the statue of Julius Caesar placed in the Roman Forum. The future emperor suggested a connection between the comet and Caesar to gull the Romans. Secretly, suggested Pliny, Octavian believed that the comet was a propitious sign, symbolizing the gods’ pleasure at his growing political power. He may have been right. Octavian expanded his influence and ultimately subverted the Roman state, replacing the republic with a monarchy. The comet symbolized Caesar’s ascent, but it also foretold the downfall of Rome’s ancient form of government. Subsequent centuries were marked with comets appearing before traumatic events. Halley’s Comet was associated with a number of historical upheavals. It shone over Attila the Hun’s armies in AD 451, presaging the invader’s defeat. In 837, Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, cowered in prayer and penance beneath the baleful gaze of the flaming star, fearing that the comet foretold the end of his rule over the Carolingian Empire. The comet reappeared in 1066 when William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, decided to wrest control of England from the hands of Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson. Norman artists stitched an image of Halley’s Comet into the fabric of the Bayeaux Tapestry, recording its appearance as an omen of political upheaval. William of Malmesbury, the author of the History of the English Kings, captured reactions to the comet’s appearance on the other side of the English Channel: 5

Comet Madness

Not long after, a comet, portending a change in governments, appeared, trailing its long flaming hair through the empty sky. A monk of our monastery, named Aethelmaer, offered a fine saying about this. Crouching in terror at the sight of the gleaming star, he said, “ You’ve come, have you? You’ve come, you source of tears to many mothers. It is long since I saw you; but as I see you now you are much more terrible, for I see you brandishing the downfall of my country.”13 Aethelmaer was right; months after the comet appeared, the Normans crossed the Channel and invaded England. King Harold Godwinson was killed at the Battle of Hastings, and William the Conqueror ended Anglo-Saxon rule. As the medieval period flowed toward the Renaissance, credulous kings trembled whenever a comet blazed against the star field. In 1453, the Ottoman Turks breached the walls of Constantinople, conquering the capital of the Byzantine Empire and clearing a path for a final Islamic sweep across Europe. As the advancing armies followed the Danube River west in 1456, a comet appeared in the skies. Did this heavenly messenger foretell the destruction of Christian Europe, or did it symbolize doom for the Islamic forces? When the flaming star appeared, wrote anti-Catholic commentators, Pope Callixtus III issued a papal bull excommunicating the comet. Friendly sources claimed that the pope did nothing so foolish; he only enjoined prayers against “the Devil, the Turk, and the Comet.” Although most modern scholars doubt the pope did either, both legends persisted because they felt authentic. No one would have been surprised to find the bishop of Rome using his ecclesiastical authority to blunt the power of the oncoming Turks and their malignant harbinger. Belief in papal authority soon faced its own test. Less than a century after the Ottoman armies were repulsed and driven back into the East, Martin Luther and the reformers shattered the unity of Christian Europe. For staunch Catholics, the emergence of Lutheran heresy symbolized the end. Comets filled the heavens, terrifying apparitions to accompany the spiritual discord that tore at the fabric of the church. The French surgeon Ambroise Paré described the particularly frightening comet of 1528. The 6

Hairy Stars

comet, he wrote, burned in the skies like a bloody sword: “At the summit of it was seen the figure of a bent arm holding in its hand a great sword as if about to strike. At the end of the point were three stars. On both sides of the rays of this comet were seen a number of axes, knives, blood-colored swords, among which were a number of hideous human faces with beards of bristling hair.”14 Although Protestant Reformers attacked Catholic “superstition”— the ideas and practices they claimed had muddied the clear waters of a simple, biblical faith—it is surprising how important heavenly signs and portents became after Luther split the church. Sixteenth-century Europe was an age of anxiety: church and society suffered upheaval. Europeans hungered for certainty and stability, for the comfort of eternal constancy. Astrology flourished as did speculation about the significance of comets.15 Western Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, were convinced that God signaled his displeasure through signs in the heavens. Although astrology and divination are usually condemned in the Bible—“Thus says the Lord: ‘Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them’”16—Christianity is an apocalyptic religion. Its exponents believed that the signs of the end would be revealed on the map of the heavens. The words of Jesus offered a theological precedent for this view. Discussing his second coming, Christ prophesied, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.”17 During the sixteenth century, Catholics and Protestants searched the heavens for heralds of the end. The terrestrial actors had appeared: the reformers regarded the pope as the Antichrist who had led the earth’s people away from the Gospel, while the Catholic Church regarded Luther as the Antichrist who had arrived in the final days to torment the church and test the faithful. With all of the earthly pieces in place, church leaders looked for confirmation in the heavens. Germany’s reformers concentrated their hopes on the year 1588. Despite a half-century of preaching during which diligent Lutheran ministers had labored in the spiritual vineyards of western Europe, many 7

Comet Madness

sinful humans refused to turn from their wicked vices. The workers had been many, but the harvest was paltry. Now the heavens disclosed, with clear and unmistakable signs, the end of God’s patience. Numerous upheavals pointed toward his impending judgment: a new star (a supernova) appeared in 1572; three comets (in 1577, 1580, and 1582) arched across the heavens. Lutheran minister David Chytraeus, writing about the comet of 1582, noted: “Since we pay no heed to the warnings nor wish to reform ourselves, He has placed before our eyes a fiery prophet and preacher, set in the Heavens, which prophecies [sic] and preaches that God’s wrath burns like fire.”18 Another Lutheran minister, Georg Caesius, recruited the unsettled sky in support of moral reform. “For eclipses, comets, and evil appearances of the outer planets bode ill,” he wrote. “We should not ignore these signs as heathens might, but rather with that much more ardor call to God and pray that He may reduce the meaning of nature’s omen, forgo punishment, or at least show some mercy.”19 The ministers were undismayed when the dreadful year 1588 failed to provide a world-rending calamity: their preaching, they informed their flocks, had led enough people back to the royal road to pacify God’s fury. Judgment was postponed, although 1600, 1604, and 1623 did not look good. The conviction that comets symbolized the return of an angry God traveled with the Puritans to the New World. When a comet split the skies above newly founded Boston in 1680, Increase Mather, Puritan minister and president of Harvard University, issued a pamphlet entitled Heaven’s Alarm to the World. After noting that, contrary to the beliefs of ancient peoples, comets were not gods but rather signs that God used to give advance warning to earth’s communities of his approaching anger, Mather listed the typical calamities foretold by the appearance of a comet. A comet, like the one above Boston, presaged persecution of the church, famine, plagues of locusts, and “lamentable deaths and destructions amongst men.”20 Comets commonly preceded devastating fires, earthquakes, flood, and the rapid spread of virulent diseases. Finally, in an interpretative arc that reached back to the ancient Chinese sages, he

8

Hairy Stars

noted that comets were frequently harbingers of war and the overthrow of kings. What could be done? Return to God, thundered Mather. Living beneath “a formidable blazing star, at that the like hath seldom been observed,” the only sensible course of action was to “hearken to the voice of the Lord therein, who by such tremendous sights is speaking awfully to the children of men.”21 The heavens were a barometer, a gauge that measured God’s satisfaction with the earth’s inhabitants. Although the deities changed, this belief transcended time, civilizations, and cultures. The association between a comet’s appearance and divine displeasure—in all of its disastrous manifestations—infused human DNA. It would be difficult to find a more universal belief among the earth’s peoples. It wasn’t until near the end of the seventeenth century that an astronomer named Edmond Halley stole, like a British Prometheus, comets from the deity.

9

Chapter Two

From Astrology to Astronomy

Many things that are unknown to us the people of a coming age will know. Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come. . . . Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all. We believe we are her intimates, but we are only hanging around the forecourt. —Seneca August 1909 found a quiet, competitive spirit gripping the world’s astronomers. From the Arizona deserts to Paris, telescopes quartered the heavens as stargazers contended for the distinction of spotting the returning comet. Somewhere out there, hidden among an apparently infinite number of celestial bodies, Halley’s Comet followed an elliptical orbit back toward the sun. The tail, soon to dominate the night sky, remained furled—the comet had millions of miles to fly before its gases sublimated and began to blow back from the head. The comet would appear as a dim smudge of light in the closing days of summer, a faint flicker against the vast star field. Every astronomer hoped to see it first. Their anticipation raises obvious questions: How did these scientists know the comet was approaching? How did a portent of doom transform into a predictable astronomical phenomenon? Or, to put it another way, how did science rescue comets from the superstitious clutches of preachers and astrologers? That story belongs to an English scientist, Edmond Halley.

d 11

Comet Madness

As Europe staggered toward the Enlightenment and the dawn of modern science, astronomy labored under the yoke of Aristotle. For two thousand years, the Greek philosopher’s opinions had served as the scientific equivalent of the gospels. Aristotle’s theories about all aspects of the natural world went virtually unchallenged: he was the Moses of science, and his ideas were handled, generation after generation, with the same reverence as the commandments of the Jewish prophet. Aristotle’s cosmology was deeply influential. The great thinker placed the earth at the center of the universe—an onion, its core ringed by a series of expanding concentric layers. The atmosphere formed the first layer above the earth’s surface. Here the winds blew and the air swept across the face of the earth. The next layer contained the realm of fire, the domain of meteors and comets. Beyond that, in ever-expanding spheres, lay the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, and the remote planets. The outermost sphere supported the stars. The earth lay at the center of the cosmos, the heart of a celestial Russian nesting doll. Every object beyond the ring of fire was permanent and eternal. The rotation of the crystalline spheres carried the sun, moon, planets, and stars—trapped like prehistoric insects in amber—across the sky. The spheres enforced order and held each object in its proper place, guaranteeing the perfect, eternal, and changeless nature of the heavens. Comets challenged the static nature of Aristotle’s model. The philosopher discussed these irregular apparitions in his work Meteorologica. Aristotle disagreed with other Greek thinkers like Democritus, who postulated that comets were similar to the planets. Comets, he argued, did not share the outer layers with the sun, stars, and planets; they existed in the sphere of fire, beneath the moon but above the surface of the earth. Scientific observation informed this claim. Aristotle noted that the sun and planets moved in front of a narrow band of stars—the zodiac. Since they never wandered outside of this ribbon, it stood to reason that the sun and planets were aligned in a fixed plane. The planets could be imagined as moving along the surface of a disk that sliced through the nested spheres. Since the planets (and the sun, in Aristotle’s view) never stray from the ring circumscribed by the zodiac, it stood to reason that

12

From Astrology to Astronomy

anything traveling outside this zone differed from the sun and the five planets. Comets were the chief offenders. Sometimes they materialized in front of one of the zodiac constellations, but centuries of observation suggested that this was not an invariable rule—they could appear anywhere in the sky. As Aristotle noted, the comet that appeared at the time of the earthquake in Achaea rose in the west; the comet seen during the archonship of Euclees, son of Molon, first appeared in the northern part of the sky.1 Since comets wandered the regions outside of the zodiac, he concluded, they must be something different than the stars and planets. Different, but what? The name of the work in which Aristotle tackled comets—Meteorologica—offered a clue. Aristotle believed that comets existed between the heavens and the earth. They were, in fact, a form of weather. Comets, wrote Aristotle, were a product of the earth’s “exhalations,” produced when the land was warmed by the sun.2 These clouds of hot, dry gas rose slowly into the heavens. When the cloud touched the fiery sphere beyond the atmosphere, the exhaled gases ignited, producing a blazing object in the sky. The rotation of the fiery sphere carried the burning gas cloud around the planet until the fire consumed the exhaled gases and the comet vanished. The important point, suggested Aristotle, was that comets did not reside in the heavenly domain. They occupied no sphere in the changeless perfection of space, but rather were a product of the transitory, ever-fluctuating pattern of terrestrial life. Aristotle’s view dominated Western science for nearly two thousand years. His immutable crystalline spheres revolved serenely on their axes until 1572, when the appearance of a new star in the constellation of Cassiopeia startled Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Brahe was one of the more flamboyant members of a Danish noble family. At age twenty he dueled with a fellow nobleman, Manderup Parsberg, over the question of who was the better mathematician. Although their swordplay failed to settle the issue, the duel did have one important consequence: as the two men parried and exchanged thrusts in the dark, Parsberg sliced Brahe’s nose. As vain as he was jealous of his

13

Comet Madness

mathematical reputation, Brahe wore a prosthetic brass nose from that time on. Astronomy consumed Tycho Brahe. Against his family’s wishes he devoted himself to the study of the stars (his father hoped Tycho would become a lawyer). With the support of his uncle, Brahe built an observatory at Herrevad Abbey, a Cistercian monastery. Later, drawing upon the patronage of King Frederick II, Brahe constructed Uraniborg, an observatory built on the island of Hven, near Copenhagen. Brahe believed that progress in astronomy and astrology depended upon precise measurements of the planets and stars. He devoted a considerable amount of time to recording the movements of heavenly bodies. When the new star appeared in 1572, a sudden bright flare that rivaled the planet Venus, astronomers well-versed in Aristotelian theory dismissed it as a flame in the fiery sphere that lay beneath the moon. After all, as Aristotle had taught, the heavens were fixed and unchanging. A new star was impossible. Brahe’s obsession with precise measurement soon challenged established wisdom. He employed the scientific principle of parallax to gauge the distance to the nova stella (new star). Without belaboring the geometry, parallax simply means that when an object is observed from two different points, the background will change if the object is close to the observers. If we set a beer bottle on a fence post and two observers stand twenty feet from the bottle, but seventy feet apart, each sees a different background behind the bottle. If, however, the observers walk backward until they are a mile from the beer bottle, the background behind the bottle will look the same, assuming they have good vision, even though they are still separated by seventy feet. This is parallax. Nearby objects appear to occupy different positions against a background. Since the moon is relatively close to the earth, when observed at the same moment in Moscow and London, it appears in different positions against the background of the star field. Jupiter, which is much further away, shows less displacement against its background of stars. Brahe collected observations of the new star from several positions across Europe. When he compiled these measurements, he realized that 14

From Astrology to Astronomy

the parallax was very small—his fellow astronomers saw it in roughly the same place. This meant that the nova lay beyond the moon and the planets. It existed among the changeless domain of stars, rather than burning in the upper atmosphere. His discovery undermined one of Aristotle’s principal theories. The heavens were not frozen in an eternally perfect state: objects in the outer spheres could change. Brahe repeated his experiment when the Great Comet of 1577 appeared in the night skies. After collating observations of the comet against its starry backdrop, he demonstrated that Aristotle was mistaken. The comet existed in the space beyond the moon, among the planets. Moreover, the movement of the comet through space, past the planets, suggested that Aristotle’s model of rotating crystal spheres was also wrong. How could a comet pass through a crystal sphere without shattering it?

d

Nearly a century later, in 1656, Edmond Halley, the man who revolutionized thinking about comets, was born in the Borough of Hackney, a village outside of London. His father was a salter (preserving beef for sea voyages) and a soap maker. His businesses prospered and he left an estate worth £4,000 at his death—nearly a million dollars in modern currency.3 Two disasters struck London during Halley’s boyhood. The Great Plague of London broke out in the spring of 1665. More than one hundred thousand people died before the plague burned out a year later. The city’s undertakers barely had time to draw breath before the Great Fire of London burned most of the city in September 1666. The Halley family was fortunate; the Great Fire skipped over their home on Winchester Street. Many Londoners linked the plague and fire to the two comets that had appeared in 1664 and 1665.4 These two disasters may have stimulated Halley’s lifelong interest in comets. Halley attended St. Paul’s School in London and later Queen’s College, Oxford. There he studied astronomy and mathematics, gaining considerable attention for his corrections of Tycho Brahe’s table of the positions of Jupiter and Saturn. He also wrote his first scientific paper, 15

Comet Madness

a description of how to calculate the eccentricity of a planet’s elliptical orbit. Halley left Oxford in 1676 before completing his degree. He was eager to make a contribution to the discipline of astronomy, and the most promising opportunity lay in charting the night sky. Unfortunately, three excellent European astronomers—John Flamsteed, Johannes Hevelius, and Giovanni Cassini—were already mapping the Northern Hemisphere. “If I were to attempt anything of the same kind,” wrote Halley, “I know I should be as one stupidly quacking amongst such matchless swans.”5 Halley turned his attention to fields that still awaited the farmer’s plow. The Southern Hemisphere’s sky was virgin territory; few Europeans—apart from the sailors who plied the world’s oceans— had ever seen those stars. Halley decided to mount an astronomical expedition to Saint Helena, a small volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean between the western coast of Africa and Rio de Janeiro. Nearly two hundred years later, Saint Helena would host the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. Halley knew very little about the island, but it was well-situated to observe the skies of the Southern Hemisphere. The weather, according to those who had visited, was generally cloud free, offering clear views of the heavens. Edmond persuaded his father to underwrite the expedition; Halley Senior provided £300, which allowed Edmond to purchase an accurate sextant and several small telescopes. King Charles II, an enthusiastic promoter of science, ordered the East India Company to provide transport and offer Edmond accommodation at their station on the island. Soon Halley was aboard a company ship bound for the southern seas. Saint Helena fell short of expectations. Maritime clouds obscured the heavens and viewing conditions were less than ideal. Nevertheless, Edmond persevered, wielding his telescope whenever the weather permitted. By the end of his stay he had cataloged 341 southern stars—many of which were unknown to European astronomers. He also related the positions of his newly mapped stars to the established northern stars, providing a frame of reference that facilitated the integration of both hemispheres. Halley spotted several nebulae with his telescope, and he 16

From Astrology to Astronomy

made important observations of the planet Mercury as it passed across the face of the sun. Despite the hardships, Halley’s sojourn on Saint Helena was productive and he returned to England with a wealth of data. He presented his charts and observations to the Royal Society. He also petitioned the king to force Oxford to grant him a degree—Oxford’s administrators decreed that since Halley had left the university before completing his studies, he had no claim to the university’s imprimatur. King Charles took a different view: Halley’s scientific accomplishments during his year on Saint Helena more than matched what he would have learned in the lecture halls, and the king pressured the chancellor of the university to award Halley his master’s degree. Additional honors followed. On November 30, 1678, Halley was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London for “improving natural knowledge.” The Royal Society, established in 1660, lay at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. Comprised of Britain’s leading thinkers, the Royal Society met weekly to read and discuss papers and to promote scientific advances across the disciplines. Winning membership in this august company marked Halley, a youth who was barely out of his teenage years, as one of England’s coming thinkers, a rising intellectual lion. After his triumphs on Saint Helena, Halley opted for the conventional and embarked on a grand tour of Europe. Crossing the English Channel in 1680, he spotted a brilliant comet burning through a vent in the clouds. A couple of months later, while in Paris, the comet reappeared. Astronomers had yet to discover that comets orbited the sun, and Halley did not realize that the two appearances of the comet were actually one extended appearance, punctuated by an interval in which the comet had passed behind the sun, vanishing during the daylight hours. The comet intrigued Halley. He convinced Jean Dominque Cassini, the director of the recently established Paris Observatory, to allow him to use the telescopes to observe the object. Cassini agreed, and Halley recorded a series of measurements that he hoped would allow him to establish the comet’s path through space. This proved more difficult than the enthusiastic young astronomer imagined. Johannes Kepler, a disciple of Tycho Brahe, had advanced a 17

Comet Madness

theory that the planets followed elliptical paths around the sun. However, suggested Kepler, comets followed a different trajectory altogether, passing through the solar system in a straight line, like a bullet shot from a rifle. They approached the earth, passed it, and then receded into infinite space. The comet’s course did not bend into an ellipse; if its track across the heavens appeared curved, argued Kepler, this was a consequence of the earth’s movement. Comets flew in a straight line. Hoping to confirm Kepler’s theory, Halley attempted to place his observations on a straight path. It didn’t work. The young astronomer was puzzled by the failure of Kepler’s theory. Halley returned to England and inserted himself into the burgeoning scientific community. He spent hours in tobacco-scented coffeehouses discussing the leading theories of the day with notables like Robert Hooke (discoverer of the cell) and Christopher Wren, the architect responsible for the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire. It was a time of creative ferment, and Halley was fascinated by every branch of the scientific endeavor. Disaster struck in 1684. Halley’s father, Edmond Sr., left home on the evening of March 5 for a walk. He failed to return. Halley’s stepmother filed a missing person’s report and took out advertisements in the news books. Six weeks later, constables found his body along the banks of the Thames, stripped of clothes and badly decomposed. The coroner rendered a judgment of murder, although some modern scholars believe Edmond’s father might have taken his own life. Halley and his father were very close; the elder Halley had generously funded Edmond’s expedition to Saint Helena, purchased his telescopes, and granted him an annual allowance that freed him to pursue his scientific curiosity with no financial concerns. That ended in 1684. Halley’s stepmother restricted and then terminated Halley’s allowance. Constrained by this funding shortage, Edmond applied for the new post of Royal Society clerk in 1686, which paid a £50 annual stipend. He had to resign his fellowship to accept this “lower” position, but the job made him responsible for all of the Royal Society’s correspondence. He handled the letters and papers arriving from scientists across Europe. His 18

From Astrology to Astronomy

“demotion” placed him at the center of a web of science, granting him a privileged perch from which he could monitor developments across the sciences. This position stimulated his own creativity, and during the ten years he served as the Royal Society’s clerk, Halley published thirty papers across a range of disciplines. He remained obsessed with the question of a comet’s movement across the sky. His membership in the Royal Society brought him into contact with Isaac Newton, a professor at Cambridge. Newton had been working on the nature of orbital mechanics and the influence of a postulated force—gravity—on the motion of bodies through space. Halley, after a meeting with Newton in 1684, convinced him to develop his ideas and publish them for the benefit of scientific progress. Spurred by Halley’s enthusiasm, Newton ultimately wrote Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) in 1687. This treatise, a work that is foundational to modern physics, revolutionized scientific thought. Aside from laying the theoretical basis for calculus, it explained how gravity shaped the orbits of celestial bodies. Aristotle’s crystalline spheres were decisively shattered—the planets followed precise trajectories that could be explained mathematically. Although he is rarely credited with this contribution in popular literature, Edmond Halley served as the midwife for Newton’s Principia. Had he not pushed the great mathematician to write the groundbreaking work, it is unlikely that science could have made such stunning advances in the eighteenth century. Moreover, when the Royal Society found itself short on funds to support the publication of Principia—the fellows had squandered their entire publication budget on a scientific flop titled The History of the Fish—Halley paid for the printing himself. This generosity is even more impressive when we recall that Halley no longer had a private income to fund speculative projects; he was an employee of the Royal Society when he paid Newton’s printing bills. Newton owned the stunning genius behind the revolutionary ideas, but Edmond Halley ensured they reached the attention of the scientific community. Halley’s work with Newton stimulated his greatest contribution to astronomy. Halley realized that Newton’s ideas could be extended to include comets. Halley focused his attention on applying Newton’s 19

Comet Madness

theories to the problem of comet motion. In 1705, he published the remarkable treatise A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets. He opened his work by noting that comets had long mystified humanity. The Egyptians had claimed the ability to predict the appearance of comets, although they offered no theory to account for them. Progress toward understanding the nature of comets had received a setback with Aristotle’s theory of sublunary exhalations, and apart from Seneca’s belief that comets belonged among the celestial bodies, no explanations of value had been proposed between the classical age and his own. Newton’s Principia offered the tantalizing suggestion that comets followed a parabolic orbit around the sun. That is, they approached the sun, bent around it, and then were cast, like a stone from a slingshot, away from the solar system in a different direction. Halley wondered if that was true. “Since they appear frequently enough, and since none of them can be found to move with a hyperbolic motion, or a motion swifter than what a comet might acquire by its gravity to the sun, ’tis highly probable they rather move in very eccentric orbits, and make their returns after long periods of time.”6 In other words, rather than making one visit to the sun and then flying off into space, wasn’t it more likely that comets followed the same elliptical orbits now established for the planets? Halley searched the archives, compiling historical references to comets, building a table that specified when a comet had been sighted in the past, and where, in the sky, it had first appeared. After collating twenty-four observations from 1337 to 1698, one comet showed remarkable similarities: the comet of 1682. According to the records at Halley’s disposal, the comet had appeared in the same part of the sky in 1531, 1607, and 1682. This led the astronomer to suspect that these entries in his catalog referred to the same comet, one that followed a Newtonian elliptical orbit through space, circling the sun every seventy-six years. Somewhat problematically, the comet did not run with complete chronological regularity: you wouldn’t want to set your calendar by it. Seventy-six years separated 1531 from 1607, but only seventy-five had elapsed when the comet reappeared in 1682. Halley attributed these variations to the effect of gravity. As the comet moved through the solar 20

From Astrology to Astronomy

system, it passed through the strong gravitational fields of Jupiter and Saturn. These monsters altered the speed of the comet’s flight, slowing or accelerating its passage through space. Gravitational perturbations, as outlined in Newtonian mechanics, introduced irregularities into the comet’s orbit. He was the first scientist, apart from Newton, to apply these new ideas to an astronomical problem.7 Not only did he provide an explanation of cometary orbits, but he also offered a bold prediction: In the year 1456, in the summer time, a comet was seen passing retrograde between the earth and the sun, much after the same manner [as those seen in 1531, 1607, and 1682]: which, though nobody made observations on it, yet from its period and the manner of its transit, I cannot think different from those I have just now mentioned. Hence I dare venture to foretell that it will return again in the year 1758. And, if it should then return, we shall have no reason to doubt that the rest must return as well.8 In one stroke, Halley stole comets from the gods, desacralizing and converting them into natural, explainable, and predictable phenomena. Comets were not portents, signs of divine wrath, omens of impending doom. They were celestial objects following predictable, albeit long, paths that could be calculated decades or even centuries in advance. The fear they stirred in the human heart, their longstanding reputation as evil emissaries of the gods, was unwarranted. At least this would be true if Halley was right. The astronomer was thirty-nine when he published the Synopsis; he was unlikely to live another fifty-three years to see if the comet materialized on schedule. Halley suffered a small stroke in 1737, which left his right hand partially paralyzed and interrupted an eighteen-year project of creating tables that would allow mariners to determine their longitude at sea by measuring the moon’s position. Four years later, illness and a growing infirmity overwhelmed his still-eager mind. Paralysis spread throughout his body. Richard Mead, the king’s physician, prescribed a medicine of gruel mixed 21

Comet Madness

with Jesuit’s bark (the source of quinine). This concoction failed to succor the ailing scientist. On January 14, 1742, Halley requested a glass of wine. He took a seat, drained the glass, and minutes later, without any distress, passed away. He went to his grave after one of the most illustrious careers in scientific history. Nevertheless, his most famous contribution still awaited confirmation.

d

Neither Halley’s accomplishments nor his predictions faded with his death. Europe knew that 1758 was the expected date of the comet’s return, and astronomers looked forward to the proof (or disproof ) of Halley’s beliefs with eager anticipation. A French math prodigy, Alexis Clairaut, became interested in Halley’s prediction. Clairaut believed that Halley’s estimate could be tightened by employing mathematical advances that had occurred after the astronomer’s death. He drafted astronomer Joseph Jerome de Lalande to assist him in fine-tuning the anticipated return date. The two men had little time to work. If Halley was right, his comet was rapidly approaching. It would not be very impressive to publish a revised forecast after it appeared in the sky. If the pair wanted to make a stir, they had to finish their calculations before the comet appeared. Needing help, the men turned to Madame Nicole-Reine Etable de la Brière Lepaute. Madame Lepaute was one of the leading mathematical minds of her day. Lalande later wrote: Madame Lepaute gave us such immense assistance that, without her, we should never have ventured to undertake this enormous labor, in which it was necessary to calculate for every degree, and for a hundred and fifty years, the distances and forces of the planets acting by their attraction on the comet. During more than six months, we calculated from morning to night, sometimes even at table, and as the result of this forced labor I contracted an illness that has changed my constitution for life; but it was important to publish the result before the arrival of the comet.9 22

From Astrology to Astronomy

The mathematicians updated the orbital projections for both the comet and the massive planets whose gravitational fields shaped its path. The team spent six months during 1757 working on their calculations—a task that would take a modern computer no longer than the spin of a hard drive. They projected that Saturn would slow the comet by 100 days and Jupiter by 518. Their conclusion? Halley had made a couple of mistakes in his calculations, but these errors worked to his advantage. The comet would arrive in 1758, as Halley had predicted. On December 25, 1758, a German farmer and amateur astronomer named Johann Palitzsch spotted the comet in precisely the location that Halley had projected. It took nearly a month before a “professional” astronomer confirmed Palitzsch’s sighting: Charles Messier of the Paris Observatory verified the comet’s return on January 21, 1759. An extended period of overcast skies in Europe had delayed Messier’s observations.10 The comet returned, flared in the night sky, and achieved perihelion—its closest approach to the sun—on March 13, 1759. Halley had been right; his brilliant conjecture was correct. Comets were not divine portents sent by remorseless gods to herald doom, destruction, or the death of kings. Comets were natural phenomena governed by Newton’s theories. Comets belonged to the realm of science, not religion or astrology. Using the mathematics refined in France, astronomers predicted the comet’s return in 1835 and 1910. Halley’s discovery desacralized the comet, offered a scientific, provable explanation for its appearances, and explained why, in the late summer of 1909, astronomers—both professional and amateur—searched the heavens for the returning comet.

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Chapter Three

Whither the Comet?

Whence art thou, say Thou pale winged messenger? And whither goest? What thy history? And what thy future? Tell a waiting world-rending Ere visiting again yon silent deeps. —Mary Proctor, “Halley’s Comet after 75 Years Rushes Earthward Again” Why was it so difficult to find the comet? If mathematicians could calculate a comet’s orbit, shouldn’t astronomers know when and where it would reappear in the skies? Journalist Mary Proctor traveled to the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, searching for answers to these questions. She was working on an article about the comet and decided to interview Professor Edward Emerson Barnard. It had not been difficult to arrange a meeting. Mary Proctor was one of America’s leading science writers, a woman who possessed an impressive scientific pedigree. Born in Dublin in 1862, she and her father, English astronomer Richard Proctor, immigrated to the United States after the death of her mother. The broken family settled in Saint Joseph, Missouri. Mary served as her father’s assistant, editing his many scientific papers. After Richard succumbed to yellow fever in 1888, Mary drew upon her experience and scientific expertise to launch a literary career. She abandoned technical 25

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literature and began writing for a popular audience. Many of her books targeted young readers. Stories of Starland, published in 1895, introduced young minds to the wonders of the heavens, inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. Her talents were not restricted to print media; she was also a popular children’s lecturer. Proctor’s speaking career began at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, where she enthralled young audiences with descriptions of the fascinating objects beyond our atmosphere. Booking agents saw her presentation and filled her calendar with speaking engagements. She “took the brownies up to the sky,” for she “understood how to touch a responsive chord in her small listeners’ imaginations, and she had seldom, if ever, to complain of inattention in her youthful audiences.”1 Audiences called her the “children’s astronomer,” wrote one reporter, for she, in coming down from her “lofty observatory,” had succeeded in tailoring her message to a child’s intelligence and unfurled the marvels of the heavens to lift them skyward, where “a new world of wonders awaits the little people’s pleasure.”2 Proctor also wrote for adult audiences. Her articles appeared in the nation’s newspapers, and, in June 1909, she launched a short-lived syndicated column, Gossip of Starland. This monthly feature offered the latest news from the world of astronomy, highlighting discoveries, personalities, and projects, imitating a Hollywood gossip columnist’s obsession with actors and movies. The parallel ended there, for unlike a gossip columnist, Proctor was a woman of intellectual weight: by 1909 she had won memberships in both the British Astronomical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; later in life, she was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. She was the perfect person to make a crusty scientist seem interesting. Hence, Proctor’s trip to the Yerkes Observatory and her pressing question: when could people expect to see Halley’s Comet reappear? There wasn’t a simple answer, replied Professor Barnard. A comet’s orbit carried it through the gravity fields of the solar system’s planets. Each brush with a larger object tweaked the comet’s trajectory, altering its speed and direction. Halley’s Comet followed a roughly elliptical orbit that was defined by Newton’s theories, but the accumulation of gravita26

Whither the Comet?

tional bumps and jostles made precise prediction impossible. A perfect Newtonian ellipse existed only in empty space. Gravitational influences also affected the length of time it took the comet to make a circuit. Although Halley believed that his comet followed a seventy-six-year orbit, the period varied between seventy-four and seventy-nine years. Astronomers were reasonably confident that the comet would return in 1910, but a precise date for its reappearance eluded their calculations. Observers would have to locate the comet as they always had: by searching the skies with telescopes. Ironically, noted Professor Barnard, in this task modern astronomers were victims of their superior technology. The Yerkes Observatory housed a forty-inch refractor telescope, one of the most powerful instruments in existence at the time. The great magnification allowed an astronomer to look deep into space. A layman might believe that the telescope’s superior resolution would translate into a huge advantage when searching for the comet, but this was inaccurate. Each increase in magnification reduced the field of view; a Yerkes astronomer saw only six degrees of arc through the telescope’s eyepiece. If a man stretched his arm toward the heavens, the amount of sky covered by the nail on his little finger was many times larger than what the Yerkes refractor could apprehend. “The astronomer,” said Barnard, “can see but a small speck of space. If the position of an object be closely known, it can be readily picked up if bright enough to be seen in the 40 inch. But if the place is uncertain by some degrees it would be a great loss of time to hunt for it with the 40 inch.”3 The forty-inch telescope’s greatest strength—its ability to resolve tiny objects at great distances—was also its Achilles’ heel: it was useless until observers knew where to look. Consequently, Professor Barnard believed that the astrophotographers were more likely to flush the comet from its hiding spot. By coupling a camera with a smaller telescope and making long exposures, objects traveling across the star field produced streaks of light on the developed negative. “The photographic plate is far more sensitive than the naked eye to the light of a comet,” explained Barnard. “The field of view of a photographic telescope is far greater than that of the visual 27

Comet Madness

telescope so that it can readily take in, in one picture, all the region that is likely to contain the comet. . . . Though the comet will be very faint [in] the coming fall and winter I have no doubt it will be found photographically.”4 Despite his inability to specify an arrival date, Professor Barnard felt confident that earth’s residents would soon enjoy a sensational show. “I think you can say with certainty,” he told Mary Proctor, “that Halley’s Comet will be visible in the 40 inch telescope in the winter of 1909.”5 Would the comet be as spectacular as it had been in past centuries? That remained an open question. “Halley’s Comet,” wrote Proctor, “has the reputation for being specially reckless in this way, adorning itself with trains long enough to reach from the earth to the sun and millions of miles beyond. No court beauty about to be presented to her monarch could vie in vanity with this celestial coquette.”6 The fiery plumes exacted a terrible price. Although the mechanism was not understood in 1910, a comet is a wasting resource: with each orbit around the sun, it loses material from its nucleus and becomes less magnificent. Astronomers had noted this diminution, although they could not explain it. Comets dimmed over the centuries, and it remained to be seen if the 1910 visit would produce a display to rival the comet that burned over the armies of the Norman invasion.

d

Although Professor Barnard refused to predict the date of the comet’s reappearance, Reverend Irl R. Hicks of St. Louis, Missouri, lacked the astronomer’s professional caution. In The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Weather Almanac, 1909, Hicks informed his subscribers that the comet would appear in October 1909. Professor Barnard and his colleagues might not want to commit to a date, but Hicks was confident that he knew more than they did. Irl Hicks claimed to be America’s foremost long-range weather forecaster. A native of Bristol, Tennessee, his early years had trended toward a future military career.7 His father, Abraham, was an old campaigner who had served with distinction in the Seminole Wars. When the Civil War began, seventeen-year-old Irl and Abraham joined the Confederate 28

Whither the Comet?

side of the conflict. He served in Company F of the First Confederate Cavalry of Tennessee. After fighting in several clashes, Irl was captured and sent to Johnson’s Island, Ohio, a prisoner of war camp on Lake Erie’s Sandusky Bay. Internment altered the young man’s destiny. His camp job— distributing letters to the prisoners—taught him the power of the post office. A violent storm that whipped Lake Erie into a terrifying maelstrom and nearly destroyed the camp awoke his interest in meteorology. When the war ended and the prisoners packed for their return home, Irl was offered an opportunity to showcase his literary talent, the third leg of his future’s tripod. He composed and recited a poem entitled “Prisoner’s Farewell to Johnson’s Island, Ohio.” Published a decade later in St. Louis, this valedictory address foreshadowed the writer who would soon enthrall the nation’s farmers with his long-range weather forecasts. The poem unwinds in the depressed meter of defeat as the Confederate soldiers are led into captivity like the ancient Hebrew youth, Joseph, “who was forced to mourn his seeming fate ’neath Egypt’s skies.”8 Like the future patriarch, the soldiers were unjustly imprisoned, but, if they continued to maintain their hope in the Lord, they could expect release and reinstatement. That blessed moment had arrived, although most of Irl’s companions had little to look forward to in their defeated homeland. Irl’s future was not as bleak as his poem predicted. After returning to the South, he enrolled at Andrew College in Trenton, Tennessee, where he studied an eclectic blend of theology, philosophy, and meteorology. Ordained a Methodist minister, he accepted a pastorate in St. Louis. Although some ministers found their vocation a full-time job, Irl was determined to pursue his extracurricular interests. He soon abandoned the Methodists for the Congregationalist denomination, a move that freed more time for writing and meteorological studies. Although the preface of the “Prisoner’s Farewell” had proudly proclaimed a decision to devote his life to God’s service—“giving up all expectations of, requisite attainments to, and claims upon what promised to be a successful business life”9— mammon was not finished with Irl. He started the Word and Works Publishing Company in St. Louis and began printing his annual weather almanac. 29

Comet Madness

Hicks based his work on the conviction that the earth’s interstellar companions exerted a largely unrecognized influence on the planet’s weather. He expounded the theories underpinning his forecasts in the 1896 edition of his almanac. Scientists were just beginning to acknowledge that air currents in the upper atmosphere might shape and drive the storms that ravaged the earth’s surface. But where did that upper atmosphere end? Hicks believed that it extended past the planets. The earth was washed by interstellar energy currents and rivers of moisture. The interaction of these forces shaped the weather experienced at ground level. “Along the center of these mighty whirlpools that convey terrestrial matter and force against gravitation sunward,” he wrote, “positive electricity rushes in mighty volume and force from the sun to the earth diffusing itself in the surrounding ether and air and precipitating the aqueous properties of both upon us from ‘above the heavens’—waters that have rolled in the mighty seas of Jupiter, and that have been pumped by the Solar vortexes into the all purifying ether-realms.”10 Hicks believed that the sun, moon, and planets propelled streams of energy and water toward the earth. These forces ebbed and flowed as the planets orbited the sun, approaching and receding from the earth. The weather at any given moment depended on the positions of our interstellar neighbors. His theory, claimed Reverend Hicks, was gaining scientific approval. A reader had sent Hicks a press clipping in which America’s chief meteorologist, Willis L. Moore, argued that cold snaps came, not from the polar ice caps, but from the upper atmosphere. Hicks agreed; the professional scientists “are beginning to ‘look at things,’ as the records will prove that we have been looking at them for many years.”11 Moore was on the right path, although his theory was still insufficient. In Hicks’s opinion, Moore needed to look even higher, directing his thoughts outward, to interstellar space, where the great flows of moisture and energy buffeted the earth like river rapids. Hicks’s annual weather almanacs were a strange blend of scientific knowledge and astrology. They featured tables predicting the times for sunrise and sunset (in Central Daylight Time), as well as moonrise, the 30

Whither the Comet?

lunar form, and its position in the heavens. This was followed by the long-range weather forecasts based upon the relative positions of the sun, moon, and the planets. A monthly magazine, Word and Works, supplemented the annual almanac. Here readers found articles on meteorology, astronomy, and theology. Hicks walked a narrow path between charlatan and genuine scientist. He believed his theories of interstellar influence, and at a time when the professional meteorologists of the US Weather Bureau often failed to predict the next day’s weather, sheer luck brought Hicks an amazing level of success.12 Many newspapers—especially in the Midwest—reproduced his forecasts every month. Hicks priced his almanac at a dollar apiece and Word and Works sold hundreds of thousands of copies every year, earning a substantial profit for the good reverend. Hicks was America’s weather prophet, a trusted and proven meteorological sage. He believed that his superior understanding of cosmic motion qualified him to offer predictions about the comet. In the 1909 almanac—published in November 1908—Hicks wrote: “Halley’s Comet, by some supposed to be the Star of Bethlehem, will again visit us this year. It will probably be visible to the naked eye in October, about midway between the Pleiades and Hyades on the west and Castor and Pollux in Gemini on the east or about 7 degrees to the right or west of the bright star Alhena in Gemini.”13 Professor Barnard might hedge his bets, but Irl Hicks knew when the comet would reappear. America’s weather prophet had committed his forecast to print. His readers could expect the comet in October 1909. The matter was settled.

d

America’s favorite author, Mark Twain, also had the comet on his mind. The humorist and his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, spent the summer of 1909 at Stormfield, Twain’s estate in Redding, Connecticut. A deteriorating heart had slowed Twain. Country walks unfolded painfully, and often the elderly writer was forced to cling to Paine’s strong arm for support. 31

Comet Madness

Despite increasing frailty, Twain’s mind remained active and ranged over a wide field of knowledge. He was fascinated by politics, theology, and astronomy. The study of the cosmos, reported Paine, was Twain’s favorite science: “He talked astronomy a great deal—marvel astronomy. He had no real knowledge of the subject, and I had none of any kind, which made its ungraspable facts all the more thrilling.”14 The pair contemplated the “unthinkable distances of space”—how could a person wrap their mind around the notion that the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, lay twenty-five trillion miles from the earth? The distance was incomprehensible. During one of their mental rambles across the universe, Twain offered a startling prophecy: “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’ Oh, I am looking forward to that.”15 A little later Twain added: “I’ve got some kind of heart disease, and [Dr.] Quintard won’t tell me whether it is a kind that carries a man off in an instant or keeps him lingering along and suffering for twenty years or so. I was in hopes that Quintard would tell me that I was likely to drop dead at any minute; but he didn’t. He only told me that my blood-pressure was too strong. He didn’t give me any schedule, but I expect to go with Halley’s Comet.”16 Whether the great satirist, who had so many times diagnosed the ills of his society, was right about his own prognosis remained to be seen.

d

As the summer of 1909 slipped past, astronomers scanned the heavens, each hoping to be the first to spot the returning comet. If bookmakers had handicapped the field, they would have placed Professor Max Wolf of Germany’s Heidelberg Observatory as the odds-on favorite. The son of a physician, Wolf was born June 21, 1863, in Heidelberg, a town that he rarely left.17 When Max was a teenager, his father set up a small observatory in the garden behind the family home. Max spent 32

Whither the Comet?

his unoccupied evenings studying the heavens, and in 1884, while a student at the University of Heidelberg, he discovered his first comet. Comet Wolf (14P/Wolf ) is a short-period comet, circling the sun every six years. After postgraduate work in Stockholm, Wolf returned to Heidelberg, where he began his academic career. In 1893, the university appointed him “Extraordinary Professor in Astrophysics” and director of the Heidelberg Observatory. Competing universities attempted to lure Wolf from Heidelberg, but he refused every overture. Wolf ’s pioneering use of astrophotography separated him from his contemporaries. He was one of the first astronomers to link a camera with his telescope and use long exposures of the heavens to reveal interstellar objects moving against the star field. A complicated clockwork driven by electric motors maintained the telescope’s alignment as the earth rotated beneath the observatory. Even during the longest exposures—ranging from ninety minutes to two hours—Wolf ’s motor drive moved with such precision that the stars appeared as a single point of light on the developed film. Celestial objects—planets, asteroids, and comets—moving in front of the distant stars betrayed their presence by tracing a blurry trail of light across the photograph. The images allowed Wolf to direct his attention to promising parts of the sky in his search for new objects. He detected objects moving at a slower speed—or at a greater distance from the earth—by comparing images taken hours or days apart. When the two negatives were superimposed, moving objects revealed their motion against the fixed stars.18 The German astronomer’s method was effective; during the years 1892 to 1895, he discovered thirty-six new asteroids. He was also the first astronomer to publish photos of the stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, revealing an inconceivable number of stars floating against great luminous gas clouds. His photos delivered a mind-numbing reminder of the size of our galaxy. Wolf ’s long exposures revealed stars and nebulae that were invisible to conventional observation. He probed the dark regions of space that seemed to lack stars. Ultimately, while studying a nebula in the constellation of Cygnus, he realized that the clouds of gas that spread across 33

Comet Madness

the heavens could produce light (luminous clouds) or absorb light (dark clouds). The dark clouds masked the stars behind them, creating the illusion of voids or holes in the star field. Dark clouds, concluded Wolf, were far more common than the dazzling luminous clouds. The film in Wolf ’s cameras, utilizing long exposures to capture the small number of photons emanating from the faintest stars, reshaped our knowledge of the celestial realm. For decades, Wolf of Heidelberg dazzled the world with his images and discoveries. By June 1909, Wolf was already hard at work, snapping photos of the region of the sky from which he expected to see the comet emerge. Mary Proctor noted that Wolf had spotted “Planet EW,” a small planetoid that might be the returning comet. On the other hand, and far more likely, it was just another asteroid that would be appended to Wolf ’s impressive list. In fact, wrote Proctor, the competition among astronomers to be the first to locate the comet had already produced a rapidly expanding inventory of new asteroids. “It should be made an offense,” noted one member of the Royal Astronomical Society, “punishable by fine or imprisonment, to discover any more minor planets. They have become an intolerable nuisance, and are a great burden on the astronomers who have to keep pace with them and record them.” The gruff old sky watcher paused and then added, “I have never seen, during the last few years, at any rate, any good come from them, or any likely to come. I should like to see the supply stopped and the energies of the German gentleman who finds so many, turned into more promising channels.”19

d

The summer passed without a comet sighting. The search for the comet continued into August. The long delay in locating the expected object heightened anticipation and the earliest hints of comet madness emerged. A British gentleman sent a letter—reprinted in Mary Proctor’s Gossip of Starland column—that expressed fears about the approaching comet. In 1066, wrote this concerned reader, Halley’s Comet appeared in the skies, prefiguring the Norman Invasion. William the Conqueror stormed the island, killed King Harold Godwinson, and wrested the country away from the Anglo-Saxon nobility. What if, asked the writer, the Germans 34

Whither the Comet?

invaded England during the 1910 return of the comet? What if the comet’s arrival again signaled a military disaster for the island? Proctor pooh-poohed this notion. Absurd and superstitious ideas, so prevalent in prescientific societies, had no place in the modern world. “It seems scarcely possible,” she wrote, “in these enlightened times, especially in countries where education is generally diffused among the people, that such crude notions should prevail regarding the harmful influence of comets.” This celestial marvel, she continued, ought to stimulate wonder. We should be grateful to be living in a time that offered such a delightful spectacle. Unfortunately, progress was slow, and people often regressed to primordial superstitions. “The same tendency of the human mind to connect terrestrial events with celestial phenomena exhibits itself even when civilization, culture, and refinement appear to have attained the foremost rank.”20 In other words, the German armies weren’t coming.

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Competition among astronomers remained fierce. Wolf patiently plied the skies in Germany. At Wisconsin’s Yerkes Observatory, Professor Edward Barnard and his crew wielded their forty-inch refractor telescope. And in California, Professor Heber Doust Curtis confidently predicted that the powerful telescopes of the Lick Observatory—which he directed—would be first to spot the returning comet. Curtis had been working in South America, but with his recent return to the United States, he anticipated that the comet would quickly be found. “When I reach Lick Observatory,” he told reporters, “I will begin immediately searching the heavens for the Halley Comet. I expect to find it. Nearly every astronomer in the world is hunting for it, but we have such powerful glasses at Lick Observatory that I believe we will be ahead of everyone else.”21 Professor Curtis’s confidence recognized no limits: “Within a month, possibly, I will have found some traces of the comet.”22

d

September arrived. Still no comet. In England, astronomers grew nervous. On the comet’s previous pass in 1835, astronomers had located the 35

Comet Madness

returning comet 103 days before it reached perihelion. Those observers had relied on inferior telescopes, especially when compared to the optical marvels that now probed the skies. Had something happened to the comet? The British astronomers refused to make a definitive pronouncement. Based upon earlier orbital calculations, Halley’s Comet should have appeared in telescopes around the world. England’s Astronomer Royal suggested that revised orbital calculations might be necessary if the comet was running late.23 There was, however, the possibility that a collision with another planetoid might have destroyed the comet. It was also possible that the gravitational field of mighty Jupiter or Saturn had captured the comet and dragged it into a local orbit. Would the comet reappear? No one knew. In the United States, people turned their attention to autumnal pursuits. Leaves turned golden, farmers harvested their crops, and August’s heat leached from the soil. Science-minded readers in Cincinnati, Ohio, woke on a Thursday morning, September 15, to find that their local paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, brought good news: a dispatch from Germany, written by the world’s most famous astronomer, Camille Flammarion. Flammarion explained that a few days earlier he had left his home in Paris to visit Germany. “I went on purpose to the University of Heidelberg, first to express my sincere admiration to the astronomer, Max Wolf, whose discoveries in regard to comets and nebulae have given so many wonderful results, then to visit his astrophysical apparatus and finally in the hope that I would find there almost the certainty that it would be he who would first capture the comet on its present return.”24 His timing couldn’t have been better. “It just happened that it was actually during my sojourn at Heidelberg that this success now has been attained. Wolf, in fact, has just recognized this comet this morning, September 12, at 2 o’clock, on a photographic plate.”25 Wolf found the comet at a position of ninety-four degrees, thirty-three minutes in right ascension and seventeen degrees, eleven minutes in declension. The comet was 522 million miles from earth. When spotted, 36

Whither the Comet?

it was passing before a dim nebula, which had made detection even more difficult. Nevertheless, the dogged Professor Wolf picked it out against the gaseous backdrop. “If the astronomer had not looked for it on purpose and with an experienced eye, it would have been almost impossible to discover it,” wrote Flammarion.26 It was a magical moment for the French astronomer. “It was not without emotion that I realized I was the first to receive this information from an able astronomer and to see with my own eyes on the plate this distant visitor coming from the infinite in obedience to the laws of astronomical calculation.”27 “It has come back safe and sound in appearance,” wrote Flammarion. “On the plate it showed a little round nebulosity, hardly perceptible, of the seventeenth magnitude, almost lost in the midst of a group of little stars. “Astronomy, queen of sciences, is once again triumphant.”28

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Chapter Four

The Fabulous Flammarion

If Halley’s comet, which is already beginning to scare some timid people, would but produce the same effect upon delinquent subscribers to newspapers and make them pay up, it would be a financial benefit as well as an astronomical curiosity. —Aberdeen Herald, November 1, 1909 Draw a line on a piece of paper. Label the left end point “serious scientist” and the right “pseudoscientist.” The venerable Professor Edward E. Barnard deserves a place on the “serious” end of the spectrum whereas Reverend Irl Hicks should be consigned toward the right end of the line. French astronomer Camille Flammarion, president of the Paris Observatory and arguably the most famous astronomer of his age, floats somewhere in the space above the line. A two-dimensional line fails to apprehend the man’s imaginative and idiosyncratic approach to his discipline. Science advances on the shoulders of intellectual revolutionaries, men and women who take chances, break with convention, and reach for extraordinary new ideas. Those willing to stray from the well-worn paths often return with the biggest prizes. Edmond Halley was such a man; the early twentieth-century astronomer Camille Flammarion was another. Although Flammarion never made a discovery to rival Halley’s contribution, he was particularly effective in popularizing and promoting the sciences. Widely published in both newspapers and books, 39

Comet Madness

Flammarion was the Carl Sagan of his generation. Ask an average Chicago native of 1909 to name a famous astronomer, and nine out of ten would have mentioned Camille Flammarion. Flammarion’s numerous books, magazine articles, and newspaper columns established him among the pantheon of Gilded Age celebrities. Fame is transitory. Like the silent film actors who mesmerized Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, Flammarion has been forgotten. His name rarely appears in histories of astronomy, and when remembered it is usually to condemn him for terrifying the world with his predictions of cometary destruction. Scientific memory consigns Flammarion to the circle of Hades reserved for crackpots, charlatans, and pseudoscientists. This is unfortunate. Flammarion was a brilliant scientist who made solid contributions to his discipline, popularized the work of the men in the observatories, and introduced millions of readers to the glory of scientific thought. His creative mind led him down odd paths, and he articulated a vision for the sciences that drew him away from the well-trodden arterials. Nevertheless, much of the opprobrium he attracted is undeserved. He was a victim of American newspapers. The press that created a scientific celebrity cast him down and trampled his hard-earned reputation underfoot.

d

Flammarion was born February 26, 1842, in the small village of Montigny-le-Roi (now part of the commune of Val-de-Meuse) in the Haute-Marne department of northeast France. In a short autobiographical article, Flammarion professed an inability to remember when he first became interested in astronomy. The desire to know more about the stars that blazed in the crisp nights above his village had always been with him. “My heart thrilled within me at the lordly spectacle of nature; and, like all children, my inquisitive brain was disturbed by a thousand questions. Why was this? Why was that? Where did the sun go to at setting? What were all those stars?”1 A solar eclipse, occurring in the summer of his tenth year, made a lasting impression. Flammarion’s mother filled a pail with water and set it in the yard so that Flammarion and his sister could safely monitor the 40

The Fabulous Flammarion

eclipse in the reflected image. The fascinated children huddled over the pail as the moon passed before the burning sun. “We saw it gradually diminish in size, as the invisible dark disk of the moon crept over its reddening face. The moon soon covered more than one-half of the orb of day. Nature put on a lurid and sinister appearance. I remember that the good old countrywomen of the place said that the end of the world was at hand.”2 Although the phenomenon captured in a pail of water enthralled the boy, his life was changed when he realized that scientists had predicted the eclipse before it happened. “It had been foretold to a minute by the learned men of Paris, and had taken place exactly as predicted by them.”3 This was knowledge; this was a true understanding of the universe. “I should not be surprised,” mused Flammarion, “if the event had a decisive influence on the development of my tastes.”4 Flammarion’s interest in the heavens grew. The ruins of an ancient castle loomed over the family home in Montigny-le-Roi, and on summer evenings he climbed to the foot of the walls to stare at the stars spread across the French skies. “The names of a few planets and constellations had found a place in my youthful imagination,” he later wrote. “Venus, the bright evening star; the Pleiades, or, as I called them, the hen and her six chickens; Orion, better known to me as the rake; and the Polar Star.”5 The young boy hungered for knowledge about the celestial domain. “What were these distant worlds? How far away were they from our globe? What, in fact, was the whole sky whither we would fain have flown on our childish wings?”6 Flammarion excelled in his studies; able to read and write from age four, he quickly outpaced his classmates in the small village school. Although he longed for a scientific education, his parents had other ideas. They sent Camille, when he was ten, to the Jesuit school at Langres. His mother and father had decided that their son would serve the church. The teachers at Langres failed to extinguish young Flammarion’s scientific curiosity. Questions about the natural world haunted his thoughts. What, for example, held the earth up in space? Why didn’t it fall? Flammarion badgered the professors who taught his daily lessons. They proved unable or unwilling to offer satisfactory explanations. 41

Comet Madness

Langres was a provincial backwater, a place where the locomotive’s whistle was rarely heard, “steeped in devotion and silent as a cloister of the middle ages.”7 Science and the advance of technology received little attention in a community focused on theology and the lives of the saints. When pressed to offer a scientific account of the heavenly dance of the spheres, a teacher explained that astronomy was a suspect science, one that was not to be fully relied upon. It was far better for the life of faith, explained the professor, to simply assume that the sun revolved around the earth. That explanation “was perhaps the best and, after all, the most probable.”8 Flammarion experienced a significant turning point a year later. A comet appeared in the skies above Langres; he spent many evenings sprawled in his host family’s yard, watching the visitor from deep space. “It soared above the sunset like an air feather,” remembered Flammarion, “and shone with a soft, calm light that suffused the depths of the heavens. It was to me a note of interrogation poised in the infinite.”9 Once again the boy looked to his teachers for an explanation of what he was seeing; once again the ecclesiastical professors proved unable to satisfy his curiosity. Increasingly obsessed with science and consumed with a desire to penetrate the mysteries of the celestial realm, Flammarion grew frustrated with the limits of his religious education. “As I generally received anything but satisfactory answers to my questions, I began to hold my peace and think for myself.”10 At around the same time, Camille’s family relocated to Paris. He rejoined his parents and enrolled in another Jesuit school in the St. Roch area of the city. He finished his education, passed the examinations for a bachelor’s degree, and in 1858, at age sixteen, entered the Paris Observatory as a “pupil astronomer,” working beneath the great French astronomer, Urbain Le Verrier, France’s master of celestial mechanics. Le Verrier’s application of this highly mathematical discipline—the study of bodies moving through space—led to his discovery of Neptune in 1846. After intensive analysis of the discrepancies in the observed orbit of Uranus, Le Verrier realized that another planet must be affecting the former’s path. Five days after announcing the position where the new planet might be found, the Berlin Observatory confirmed its existence. 42

The Fabulous Flammarion

Le Verrier, recognizing Flammarion’s innate talent and intellectual energy, offered the young man a training post. Flammarion hesitated— Le Verrier and his acolytes worshiped mathematics. His pursuit of astronomical discoveries relied upon painstaking measurements and years of calculations. From the beginning of their association, Flammarion felt that the cold equations marching down his worksheets drained the life out of the study of the stars. “I noted in the temple many petty jealousies, narrow-minded ambitions, some good calculators, but very little enthusiasm for the sky, and not a particle of poetic sentiment. Several among them looked upon the science much in the same manner as if they had to make a piece of furniture or a pair of shoes. It is only fair to add that the pursuit of pure mathematics dries up every surrounding object like a fruitless blast.”11 Flammarion spent four years breathing the dust raised by Le Verrier’s meticulous, plodding approach. In 1862, he and the master astronomer parted company. According to Flammarion, Le Verrier’s “autocratic methods and irascible temper” angered many of his colleagues. The senior astronomer “would have been still more useful to science and humanity if he had possessed a more sociable character and a more disinterested love for the general progress.”12 The two scientists, although brilliant in their own domains, failed to reconcile their approaches to astronomy. Le Verrier emphasized precise measurement of the heavens, the collection of data that workers organized into the mathematical calculations that produced new discoveries. Flammarion, although capable of calculation, possessed the heart of a poet. He was enthralled by the majesty of the heavens and believed that astronomy was a springboard for the imagination. He preferred speculation about what might be over the dry documentation of what was. Flammarion’s break from Le Verrier coincided with the publication of his first book, La pluralité des mondes habités (The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds). Dispensing with his mentor’s dry mathematics, Pluralité plunged enthusiastically into the heavens, roaming the solar system in a wildly speculative search for extraterrestrial life. The first edition contained fifty-four pages; in the decades that followed, Flammarion expanded and refined this book until, more than forty editions 43

Comet Madness

later, it exceeded five hundred pages. Oddly enough, Pluralité does not seem to have been translated into English, which was unusual given its wide distribution. In its later editions, Pluralité contained five major sections. The first offered a historical survey of past thinkers—going all the way back to the ancient peoples of India and the Chaldeans—who had believed that other forms of life existed among the stars. Part two employed physical astronomy to argue that life on other planets was possible. A third section approached the question from a theological angle: was it sensible to believe that God had created the vast span of the heavens just for the amusement of the inhabitants of one tiny planet adrift in a backwater of the universe? Moreover, despite Christian calls for love and righteousness, human life on this planet was morally flawed. If the ideals proposed by a beneficent creator were to be fully realized, would it not make sense that the soul passed through a series of lives, acquiring moral education and increasing excellence with each step? The evidence of immorality on earth suggested that the planet’s inhabitants occupied one of the lowest steps on the moral ladder: “good men may be counted on the fingers.”13 Consequently, argued Flammarion, there must be higher realms beyond the earth’s atmosphere, superior celestial spheres to which we ascend after our death. Influenced by French philosopher Jean Reynaud and the evolutionary vision of Charles Darwin, Flammarion argued for metempsychosis, the idea that a soul leaves the body at death and is reborn in another vessel. That evolving soul does not remain trapped on the earth. Our next body might appear on Mars, Jupiter, or even the sun. Naturally, due to varying environmental conditions, transmigrating souls shed their human appearance, adopting the forms and modes of life that suited their new environment. This upward ascent of souls meant that life existed beyond our planet. Neighboring planets were “studios of human work, schools where the expanding soul progressively learns and develops, assimilating gradually the knowledge to which its aspirations tend, approaching thus evermore the end of its destiny.”14 The heavens beckoned, and astronomy’s important

44

The Fabulous Flammarion

task was to encourage us to begin the ascent, in our minds if not yet our flesh. Pluralité was a stunning best seller. Flammarion later claimed that its publication had made his reputation and set him on a literary course. It also earned Le Verrier’s disfavor and probably precipitated his departure from the Paris Observatory—whether he was fired or simply fled an increasingly hostile supervisor is not clear. The young man took a post with the Bureau des Longitudes and continued his work in the private observatory he built near his Paris home.

d

Although Flammarion’s metaphysical speculations attracted significant public attention, he never abandoned conventional astronomy. After leaving the Paris Observatory, he worked on sunspots and studied the geology of the moon. Scientific papers published in the Annals of the Academy of Sciences emerged from his home observatory. His restless mind sent him careening across astronomy’s domain: he published a chart of the stars around the North Pole, a paper on the qualities of zodiacal light, and a record of his observations of Jupiter.15 During this period, he also became fascinated with balloon flights. The Montgolfier brothers had made the first pioneering flights in France near the end of the eighteenth century. The technology matured during the next century, and by Flammarion’s day, balloons routinely flew from Paris. Flammarion joined French aeronaut Eugène Godard in a series of scientific ascents intended to probe our planet’s atmosphere. Godard, perhaps the most famous pilot of the day, flew balloons during the Franco-Austrian War of 1859, using them as aerial observation platforms to monitor the movement of Austrian troops. After France defeated its enemies, Emperor Napoleon III gave Godard the official title Aeronaut of the Emperor. When Flammarion wanted to explore the atmosphere, it was only natural that he turned to Godard. Together, the pair made more than ten flights in 1867, the longest of which lasted fifteen hours. Their balloon carried a formidable array of scientific gear—thermometers, barometers, and hydrometers—which Flammarion used to record the atmospheric 45

Comet Madness

conditions at various altitudes. This aerial research led to his next work, the treatise L’Atmosphere, which was released in English as The Atmosphere. Flammarion suggested the study of the atmosphere was “the question of the day; the work of the nineteenth century, as astronomy was that of the seventeenth.”16

d

His interest in atmospheric science proved only a short detour from astronomy. With L’Atmosphere in the hands of his publishers, Flammarion returned to his telescopes. “From 1873 to 1878,” he later said, “my attention was almost entirely absorbed in the study of double stars. Up to 1873, although numerous observations had been made on these remote stellar systems, these observations had not been classified.”17 Double stars—two stars that appear close together in the sky—are divided into two categories. An “optical double” consists of two stars, one much closer to the earth than the other, that appear to occupy the same space. In fact, their proximity is an illusion; they may be separated by several light years of distance. Binary stars, on the other hand, are two stars that are close together in space and orbit each other. When Flammarion began his work, eleven thousand double stars had been recorded. He painstakingly worked through the list of known doubles, analyzing their motions to separate the true binary stars from the optical doubles. In 1877, he published the fruit of his research, the Catalogue of Double Stars, a work that “became a classic in every observatory throughout the civilized world.”18 Technical articles poured from Flammarion’s pen; his writing for a nonspecialist audience continued apace. His most successful work from this period, Astronomie populaire (Popular Astronomy), became an international best seller. A guide to the wonders of the cosmos, the book opened the heavens for a nonspecialist audience. After a survey of the home planet, Flammarion eased his readers out into space, discussing the moon, sun, planets, culminating in the distant galaxies. More than one hundred thousand copies were sold in the first years after its publication. Translated into several languages, the book won the French Academy’s Montyon Prize. The French Minister of Education 46

The Fabulous Flammarion

selected the work for distribution to the country’s libraries, a certain mark of its suitability for its target audience. Flammarion introduced the common reader to the wonders of his discipline.

d

Flammarion’s work—both technical treatises and popular writing— won many admirers. In 1882, Monsieur Meret, a wealthy burgher of Bordeaux, offered a stunning gift to the prolific astronomer. Meret was an amateur astronomer who was infatuated with the stars and grateful for Flammarion’s contributions to the field. As he lay dying, Meret’s thoughts turned to the advancement of the science. Would a modest gift catalyze future progress? Meret begged Flammarion to accept a small token of his esteem, an estate known as Coeur-de-France in Juvisy-sur-Orge, a small hamlet eighteen kilometers southeast of Paris.19 The land, once owned by King Louis XIII, came with a small chateau; Napoleon had once stayed there on his way to Fontainebleau. Meret had built a small observatory on the grounds, creating the perfect astronomical oasis. When his health deteriorated, he offered the estate to Flammarion. The astronomer happily accepted the gift. He expanded the observatory, and, over the gate that admitted thousands of visitors, added the motto Ad Veritatem per Scientiam (truth through knowledge) in large gold letters.20 Juvisy became the seat of Flammarion’s scientific and literary endeavors. Flammarion’s increasing visibility led to international media attention. The scientist was usually good for a human-interest story on a slow news day. There was, for example, the story of the twice-tanned woman. At one of the frequent parties Flammarion hosted at Juvisy, the astronomer had admired the golden, flawless skin that cloaked the shoulders and upper back of one of his female guests. She never forgot his praise. In her will, she bequeathed her perfect skin to Flammarion. After her death an undertaker stripped the inheritance from her corpse and preserved it. Flammarion received the inheritance with aplomb; he instructed a bookbinder to use the fine leather to cover some of the books in his library. 47

Comet Madness

Newspapers had an insatiable fascination with Flammarion’s life. Readers learned, for example, that Madame Flammarion did not permit barbers to cut her husband’s hair, a thick, curly mass that retained its original black color as the twentieth century opened. She was obsessed with her husband’s locks and, during the thirty years of their marriage, allowed no one else to touch them. Madame Flammarion pruned Camille’s wild hair herself; after each haircut, she carefully gathered the trimmings and saved them. When a sufficient quantity had been collected, she stuffed them into the throw pillows that decorated the couple’s apartment in Paris and their quarters at Juvisy. “The Flammarions were married 30 years ago,” noted one reporter. “Therefore, taking the average time of a man’s growth of hair between each cutting as three weeks, the treasured accumulation of over 500 hair-cuttings must make a goodly pile.”21 The scientist had a well-documented aversion to dogs. “He is very fond of dogs,” reported Madame Flammarion, “and yet he has an instinctive horror of them. Thus, whenever our Newfoundland down at Juvisy, Sirius, we call him, jumps up on my husband, he turns quite pale.” Flammarion had a theory about this. “I have always thought,” he explained, “that in some previous existence I must have been bitten by a mad dog, hence my instinctive antipathy to them; though at heart I am very fond of animals of all kinds in general, and of dogs in particular.”22 As the twentieth century opened, Camille Flammarion blazed as a minor star on the celebrity circuit. Society writers offered accounts of crossing paths with the famous astronomer in Paris. Loie Fuller, then one of the world’s most celebrated dancers, described an encounter with the famous man in her autobiography. “I shall never lose the impression that the first sight of Flammarion made on my mind,” wrote Fuller. “It was at his home in the Rue Cassini, in Paris. The astronomer wore a white flannel waistcoat, bordered with a red stripe. On his head was a veritable forest of hair, so thick that I was unable to repress an exclamation of astonishment.”23 The two became friends, drawn together by their status as international celebrities. Madame Fuller also boasted of expanding Flammarion’s social circle. One night, after a performance of her famous Salome dance at Paris’ 48

The Fabulous Flammarion

Theatre de l’Athenee, Camille and Sylvie Flammarion came backstage to congratulate her. Another admirer, the famous French author Alexandre Dumas, was also present in her dressing room. Fuller quickly realized that Flammarion and Dumas were not speaking to each other. “Is it possible,” asked Fuller, “that the two most famous men in Paris are not acquainted?” “It is not so extraordinary as you imagine,” said Dumas. “For, you see, Flammarion lives in space, and I am simply a dweller on the earth.”24

d

In 1909, the year in which Halley’s Comet was predicted to reappear in the heavens, Camille Flammarion turned sixty-seven years old. Science’s senior statesman, a man who had reached the age when many retired, was not slowing down. In fact, the astronomer maintained his relentless productivity. He had written new books, including the wildly popular Astronomy for Amateurs, and continued to lead France’s effort to unravel the mysteries of the heavens. The scientist announced, a decade earlier, that he would curtail his newspaper work: “I shall write newspaper articles, but as few as possible, and only when something of very great interest happens.”25 As it happened, there were so many things of “very great interest” happening that Flammarion’s pen was rarely still. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Herald’s Paris edition, and the wire services ensured that his views appeared in American, British, and European newspapers every month. As the most famous astronomer on the planet, an established writer of popular works about the subject, Flammarion was well-placed to interpret the arrival of Halley’s Comet for an international audience. Little did he expect, in the fall of 1909, that his prominence would lead to the destruction of a reputation built on decades of hard work.

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Chapter Five

A Dangerous Tail

What is the difference between Halley’s Comet and a man’s wife? Why, Halley’s Comet comes along when it is expected to. —Chillicothe (MO) Constitution-Tribune, November 1, 1909 Camille Flammarion had the good fortune to be in Germany when Max Wolf detected the approaching comet in September 1909. Considering Wolf ’s long record of success in picking objects out of the heavens with his cameras, the news from Heidelberg was not a complete surprise. As the journal Scientific American noted, “The announcement by Prof. Max Wolf that he had discovered Halley’s Comet will be received with interest and surprise by every astronomer throughout the world— with interest because not a little credit redounds to the Heidelberg astronomer, when it is considered how much this honor has been coveted; and with surprise, because the historic comet has made its appearance nearly four months before it was expected.”1 Having established the comet’s position, Wolf worked back through his earlier photographs. He discovered that his camera had first captured an image of the comet on August 21. It all came down to knowing where to look.

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Comet Madness

Weather prophet Irl Hicks of St. Louis also claimed a share of the credit. In The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac, 1910—published two months later, in November 1909—Hicks reminded readers that he had successfully predicted the date of the comet’s reappearance. “While astronomers generally have been saying that Halley’s Comet would not appear until 1910,” wrote Hicks, “on page 15 of our 1909 Almanac we announced a year ago that it would appear in the Fall of 1909. Unless there should prove to be a ‘mistaken identity,’ the ‘long-range weather forecaster now operating in St. Louis, Missouri,’ is again ahead.”2 Hicks nailed both the date and position. “This comet made its appearance, too, almost in the exact place in the heavens foretold in our 1909 Almanac. It was first seen in the telescope in the northwestern part of the constellation Orion, bordering on the southeastern part of the constellation Gemini. . . . These movements are not greatly different from those which are given in the Astronomic Miscellany on page 15 of this [1909] Almanac. The sketch on page 15, it is proper to state, was written in the spring of 1909, at least six months before the comet was first seen on September the 11th.”3 The weather prophet was proud of his prediction. A skeptical reader wanting to quibble with Hicks’s triumphant claim might have pointed out that the weather prophet actually predicted that the comet would be visible “to the naked eye” in October 19094 rather than the more ambiguous “Fall of 1909” that he claimed in the 1910 almanac. In fact, Wolf had spotted the comet a month earlier than Hicks had predicted, and the comet would remain much too dim to be seen without powerful optics—telescopes or binoculars—until April 1910. Hicks ignored these irksome niggles and took full credit for his prediction. Looking ahead to the period when the comet would be closest to the earth, he forecast a period of abnormally cold weather in March and April, which would then transition to warmer spring conditions in May. “A regular storm period” would be active when the earth passed through the tail. Residents of the United States could expect “electric storms” and “tornadic danger at this time.”5 Hicks recommended the purchase of a barometer, for those who owned these useful instruments found it impossible to be surprised by a ferocious cyclone. Although 52

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the weather prophet’s almanac for 1910 offered no specific predictions about how the comet would affect weather in May, Hicks assured readers that he was monitoring the situation, and promised additional commentary as the comet approached. “It is the unanimous testimony of history,” wrote Hicks, quoting astronomer George Chambers, “during a period of two thousand years, that comets were always considered to be peculiarly ‘ominous of the wrath of heaven, and as harbingers of wars and famines, of the dethronement of monarchs, and dissolution of monarchs.’ . . . We do not believe that ‘the unanimous testimony of history during upwards of two thousand years’ is superstition or falsehood. We will tell you in Word and Works what we do believe and give you our reasons.”6

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Meanwhile, with Wolf ’s coordinates to guide them, astronomers turned the world’s telescopes on the incoming comet. Mary Proctor arrived at the Yerkes Observatory on September 17 where, as a guest of Professor Barnard, she was offered a chance to view the comet through the massive forty-inch refractor telescope. She described the experience as “one of the most eventful in the life of the writer.”7 At 3:00 a.m., Proctor, accompanied by Barnard’s niece, entered the famous observatory. Taking her place before the telescope’s eyepiece, she stared through the instrument into the dark void of outer space. Her first reaction was disappointment—she didn’t see anything. Then “Professor Barnard remarked in his whimsical way, ‘Surely you did not expect to see the comet with a tail?’”8 Comets only display their tails when they are close to the sun; a tail at that distance would have been extraordinary. Keep looking, counseled the professor. As Proctor peered through the telescope, she suddenly perceived “a faint, misty outline.” “That is the comet,” said Barnard.9 Millions of miles from the sun, the comet appeared as a small hazy point of light. It would grow more impressive. Fresh observations enabled the mathematicians to refine their predictions of the comet’s path. Astronomer Frank Seagrave of Providence, Rhode Island, issued a new projection: in May, the comet would zip past Earth at a distance of approximately thirteen million miles. 53

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To put that in perspective, the moon is the earth’s closest neighbor, orbiting at a distance of 240,000 miles. Mars, the nearest planet, averages 125 million miles. On May 18, the comet would be closer than Mars, but still more than fifty-four times the distance of the moon away. There was no danger of the comet’s head striking the earth, asserted Seagrave. The nucleus wouldn’t even be close. On the other hand, as the comet passed through the space between the sun and the earth, its million-mile tail would reach out and sweep over our planet. For a few hours during the night of May 18, 1910, the earth would sail through the comet’s tail and be showered with “star dust.” “There need be no scare over the approaching event,” announced Seagrave. “Nothing will happen. The end of the world will not come.”10 In fact, it was unlikely that anyone on earth would even notice the transit; astronomers might detect certain phenomena as the earth slipped into the tail, but the general public was likely to remain oblivious. That had been the case when the earth traveled through the tail of the Great Comet of 1861. Sir Robert Ball, an Irish astronomer, had described the uneventful passage: On a Sunday evening in midsummer of that year [1861] we dashed into the comet, or rather, it dashed into us. We were not, it is true, in collision with its densest part; it was only the end of the tail which we encountered. There were, fortunately, no very disastrous consequences. Indeed, most of us never knew anything had happened at all, and the rest only learned of the accident long after it happened. For a couple hours that night it would seem that we were actually in the tail of the comet, but so far as I know, no one was injured or experienced any alarming inconvenience.11 The only recorded oddity? According to Ball, a clergyman who was accustomed to read his sermons to his congregation by natural light was forced to ask his sexton to bring candles to illuminate his text; the darkened sky made reading difficult. “The expense of those candles,” claimed Sir Robert, “was, I believe, the only loss to the earth in consequence of its collision with the comet of 1861.”12 54

A Dangerous Tail

Seagrave expected a similar outcome when the earth passed through Halley’s tail: no one would notice. The event would offer an interesting chance for scientists to learn more about the comet, but the average human probably wouldn’t know anything was happening. Professor Burnham of the Yerkes Observatory echoed Seagrave’s conclusion: “It is not going to hurt anybody on this earth.”13 Perhaps Seagrave was right. If the astronomers had concealed the news, the rest of humanity would have remained oblivious. As it happened, the Associated Press wire service distributed Seagrave’s news to its member newspapers across the country. The announcement was like the starter’s flag dropping at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, launching months of media misinformation and exaggeration for profit. Despite Seagrave’s reassurances, local editors did their best to frighten their readers. “Look Out!” screamed a headline in Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader. “The Comet’s Shore A-Coming. Right into the Plane of Our Little Old Earth, But There’s no Danger of a Collision, According to Prof. Seagrave.”14 Readers in Shawnee, Oklahoma, must have been shocked to read that “The Haily [sic] Comet Will Come Glose [sic].” Very “glose,” in fact: Astronomer Seagrave had projected that “there will be a distance at the nearest point of thirteen miles between the two.”15 Newspaper editors clipped Seagrave’s reassurances from the story and left the frightening parts behind. Alabama’s Montgomery Times offered a typical example. Under the headline “Tail of Halley’s Comet to Sweep Across the Earth,” the newspaper printed a redacted version of the syndicated story. Alabama readers learned that an error in earlier orbital calculations meant that the comet was going to pass much closer to the earth than previously expected—a mere thirteen million miles—and the tail “will sweep across this planet instead of clearing it.”16 Seagrave’s comforting words—the fact that this had happened before and was nothing to worry about—were dropped from the Montgomery Times story. It was the sort of news that might rattle a reader sitting down to a morning plate of bacon and eggs.

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Most papers ran the full Associated Press story. Although often prefaced with a frightening or dramatic headline, the substance of the story—that the comet posed no danger—spread across the country. Other mathematicians corroborated Seagrave’s revised calculations. Father George Mary Searle, a noted astronomer as well as the Superior General of the Paulist Fathers, told reporters “It seems highly probable that we shall on May 18 be inside the comet’s tail.”17 Fortunately, that experience posed no threat to the earth. The comet would make a reasonably close approach to the earth, the planet would pass through the comet’s tail, but, ultimately, there was no basis for fear or concern. The comet’s head would not collide with our planet; its tail would not destroy humanity. Americans could sleep soundly, secure in the knowledge that the approaching comet offered no danger to the planet. And they might have done so, had not a fundamental rule of journalism been in play: fear and panic sell more papers than settled tranquility. The best days of a reporter’s career are when something blows up, when disaster strikes, when people die or are threatened with death. Moreover, as the next eight months clearly demonstrated, even if no disaster loomed, it was still possible to sell papers by hinting at the possibility of a universal cataclysm. So it should probably come as no surprise that even as Seagrave’s predictions spread across the country, dissenting opinions found space in the nation’s newspapers. One of the most shocking possibilities was credited to a Jesuit astronomer, Professor Charles Charroppin. Born on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, Charroppin was educated at the Saint Stanislaus Seminary in Missouri. After his ordination, the Jesuits appointed him to his post as professor of astronomy at Saint Louis University. The good father was no stranger to media attention; earlier in the year he waded into the middle of the lively debate about which explorer, Frederick Cook or Robert Peary, had reached the North Pole first. Both men claimed the honor; the controversy had filled many column inches as the newspapers printed the claims and counterclaims of the two explorers. Father Charroppin supported Cook. “Commander Peary deserves credit for his work and hardships,” said the priest, “but Doctor 56

A Dangerous Tail

Cook’s records have made me a believer in him.”18 Charroppin’s vote failed to settle the matter, and the question is still debated. In mid-September, the learned Jesuit traveled to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, to join astronomer Percival Lowell in his hunt for life on Mars.19 Father Charroppin, like Lowell, was a firm believer in the existence of Martians. On September 23, 1909, Mars and Earth would be in conjunction—the moment at which their orbits brought the two planets to their closest point. As Earth drew near Mars, Lowell and Charroppin planned to scan the red planet with the observatory’s one-hundred-inch reflector telescope, hunting for signs of Martian civilization. Father Charroppin was en route to Arizona when he blundered into a newspaper interview. According to a reporter in Las Vegas, New Mexico, when questioned about the recently spotted Halley’s Comet, Father Charroppin issued a dire warning. The return of Halley’s Comet meant that the earth was out of time. In eight months, the comet would strike and destroy the planet. This was, continued the astronomer, what Christ meant when he had predicted the fiery destruction of the world. “For fifteen years,” wrote the Las Vegas reporter, “Father Charroppin has made a close study of the periodic visits into our solar system of this great comet.” He believes “the comet is of sufficiently solid mass to shatter both our planet and itself in the event of a collision.”20 The end was at hand; let those with ears heed the warning and order their final days accordingly.

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Charroppin’s prophecy was dropped onto the Associated Press newswire, and it spread like ripples across a still pond. The story appeared in newspapers from Los Angeles to New York. It traveled north as the papers of Edmonton and Ottawa, Canada, picked it up. Most editors printed Charroppin’s prediction without offering interpretation or an opposing opinion from other astronomers. Readers learned that a prominent scientist had predicted the earth’s destruction and then were left to wrestle with that dramatic revelation. Scare the people, sell more papers. 57

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The Inter Ocean, one of Chicago’s largest newspapers, offered an excellent example of this policy. A week after Charroppin’s disturbing prediction, the Inter Ocean decided to construct a horrifying scenario around his prophecy. The newspaper ran a full-page story about the earth’s imminent demise under the headline: “World Awaits Halley’s Comet: Will Blazing Nomad of the Skies be a Messenger of Doom and Portent of Evil?”21 Illustrated with a dark diagram that depicted the comet slicing across the earth’s orbit, the story reminded readers that the comet had been the terror of the ancients and was likely to “send a thrill of apprehension through millions of earth folk” in the coming year. Although “most astronomers agree that 10,000,000 miles will be the nearest point it will reach the earth,” wrote the Inter Ocean, “the Rev. Father Charles M. Charroppin, S. J. of St. Louis University, a celebrated astronomer, believes that the earth is in imminent danger of being destroyed this winter in a collision with a comet.”22 The newspaper followed this shocking claim with a statement of Charroppin’s qualifications. He was the head of the astronomy department at Saint Louis University, a man who had devoted fifteen years to the study of comets and, for more than a quarter of a century, had been a member of the elite fraternity of great astronomers. In other words, this was not a street-corner prophet shouting doom at indifferent pedestrians—Father Charroppin was one of the world’s leading comet experts. Astronomers disagreed about the composition of comets, noted the Inter Ocean. “A few” believed that comets lacked corporeal mass. They were nothing more than a collection of dust particles that, if they struck the earth, would dissipate in a brilliant shower of meteorite flares. The earth would experience “no discomfort—save a mighty shower of ‘star dust.’”23 Father Charroppin took an opposing position. “He believes that the comet is of a sufficiently solid mass to shatter both our planet and itself in the event of a collision. He is further convinced that Jesus Christ foresaw exactly such a catastrophe when he uttered to mankind the warning that this world should one day meet a flaming doom.”24 What would that doom look like? The Inter Ocean writer unleashed his imagination to craft a doomsday scenario. As May approached, the 58

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comet would grow brighter. Soon, even those without telescopes would see it blazing in the sky. “The sight of a huge star, with its ominous tail stretching out behind it, nightly growing in size and brilliancy, sends a shiver of apprehension through even the most hardy.”25 Even if the comet’s head is composed of dust and boulders, held together by gravity, the impact would be catastrophic. “The planet itself would probably retain its integrity, but when it shook itself clear of the cloud of meteors the outer crust would be burned to an almost molten state.” Readers need only consider the power of the single meteors that occasionally penetrated the earth’s atmosphere; what would it be like if millions of these fiery objects fell at the same time? The atmosphere would overheat, “powder works would explode, gas tanks would blow up, fire would break out in buildings at the slightest excuse and the cities of man would soon be in flames. . . . The crust of the earth would probably be a cinder.”26 Humanity was unlikely to survive such a calamity. People could dig underground shelters and ride out the firestorm, but when they reemerged, they would find “a blackened, desolate landscape” overlaid with star dust and unsuitable for growing food. Slow starvation awaited the last members of the species. Was there any hope? The Inter Ocean story concluded with the less-pessimistic forecast of Father Charles Brogmeyer, one of Father Charroppin’s colleagues at Saint Louis University. Brogmeyer asserted that although he did not think “there is much danger of a collision between the earth and a comet, there is always a possibility of such a disaster.” Although an impact was unlikely, Brogmeyer shared the widespread view that a comet’s head was a diffuse mass rather than a solid object. If it did strike the earth, the heat energy released would probably result in “the utter devastation of the earth’s surface.”27 Although the Inter Ocean was no longer Chicago’s leading newspaper, it still commanded a large readership. The Sunday edition, in which this story appeared, was distributed not only in the city, but throughout the American West. The paper’s irresponsible, unbalanced reporting reached thousands of readers. When comet madness descended upon the windy city, the Inter Ocean would bear some of the responsibility. 59

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A few newspapers exercised journalistic integrity and published Charroppin’s prophecy paired with the opposing opinions of reputable astronomers. Wisconsin’s Appleton Post, under a headline that read “‘It’s All Bosh’ says J. Lymer,” recounted Charroppin’s claims and then offered the rebuttal of Professor Lymer, an astronomer from Lawrence College. Lymer claimed that the earth was in no danger. Even if, by chance, the comet collided with us, a comet “is composed of dust even more attenuated than the atmosphere at our greatest mountain altitudes. Therefore, there would be no danger to earth if we did collide with it.”28 Other newspapers received the news with sarcasm. The editor of Wisconsin’s Lancaster Teller noted that there wasn’t much left for earth’s inhabitants to do except pray. “If Father Charroppin can climb some mountain out in Arizona where he can hold the astronomical bag and catch the big heavenly long tailed snipe, before it flies down upon us and hurts us, we’ll thank him for all the people, and write him down as a life subscriber to the Teller.”29

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William Henry Knight, an amateur astronomer from California and frequent contributor to Scientific American, Popular Astronomy, and the Los Angeles Times, was less than impressed with Father Charroppin’s prediction. He moved quickly to defuse the Jesuit’s fearmongering. “According to a dispatch from Las Vegas,” he wrote in a Los Angeles Times article, “a person named Father Charroppin of the St. Louis University, who, we are informed, is ‘One of the greatest living astronomers,’ has been making dire predictions regarding the present return of Halley’s comet ‘into our solar system,’ as he phrases it.”30 How could such tripe be published in this scientific age? “It was hoped,” continued Knight, “that the evil forebodings which attended the advent of this body in our skies during the middle ages, when the nature of the strange object was unknown, even to men of science, would be spared the intelligent people of our generation. But a few facts will serve to free every mind from anxiety when the flaming messenger appears in our heavens next spring.”31

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Knight then cited the revised orbital calculations of British mathematicians Cowell and Crommelin, who, he claimed, had proven that the comet would not come within one hundred million miles of earth. These numbers were based upon measurements collected at the great Yerkes Observatory, after Professor Wolf spotted the returning traveler. Their projection proved that the comet would easily pass clear of our planet. The earth might pass through the comet’s tail as it went by, but this was no reason for concern. A comet’s tail was so diffuse and insubstantial that one could see stars shining through it. As Professor Seagrave had stated, the earth had passed through the tail of the Great Comet of 1861 without suffering harm. In short, concluded Knight, rather than serving as a harbinger of the earth’s destruction and the end of humanity, “the comet will be an object for the present younger generation to remember as long as they live.”32 Thanks to the rapid development of science and technology, the comet would be the most thoroughly studied example of its kind. Humans should celebrate its arrival, rather than be misled by a priest who wanted to drag the world back into an age of medieval fear and superstition.

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Knight’s spirited rebuttal received little attention—it appears to have run in only the Los Angeles Times. Moreover, despite its advocacy for a science-based approach to interpreting the returning comet, the writer did err in one important aspect: the comet was going to come much closer to the earth than one hundred million miles. More consequential was a backlash in the Catholic press. The Reverend Daniel McHugh, professor of astronomy at DePaul University, composed a lengthy refutation of Charroppin’s views. “Some daily papers,” wrote McHugh, “have recently given a certain astronomer credit with predicting that the famous Halley’s Comet will soon collide with the earth.” It was surprising that any respectable astronomer would offer such a suggestion: “A protest might be made against the putting forth of sensational and notorious nonsense under the authority of science and religion.”33

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McHugh then offered a brief history of the comet as well an explanation for why it was unlikely to strike the earth. Even if the improbable happened and the comet did veer into the earth, McHugh doubted that there would be any serious consequences. After all, astronomer John Herschel had seen stars through Donati’s Comet in 1858, which suggested that they were not solid objects. This view had the support of noted astronomer Camille Flammarion, who had described comets as “bags of wind.” Halley’s Comet was harmless. The best scientific thinkers discounted the possibility of a comet strike, as did Christian teaching. McHugh concluded his rebuttal with the suggestion that the newspapers had misrepresented Father Charroppin. “Let no one believe that a Catholic priest would dare assert that the Savior had the coming of Halley’s comet in mind when He prophesied the destruction of the world.”34 After all, Jesus said, “But of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Mark 13:32) and “Take heed that no man seduce you” (Matt. 24:4). Father Charroppin knew these passages as well as any priest; it was difficult to believe that this responsible and respected holy man had uttered the statements attributed to him. Father McHugh’s doubt raises an interesting question: did a reporter fabricate this story and place it on the Associated Press wire? It wouldn’t be the only case of a fraudulent story during this pass of Halley’s Comet. Father Charroppin offered no further comment on his apocalyptic prediction. Nevertheless, his position had reversed by December. Under a headline that read “Earth Will Hit Comet: Father Charroppin Says We Will Pass Through Tail Without Danger,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat placed the Jesuit in the opposing camp. Returned from observing Mars at the Lowell Observatory, Charroppin told St. Louis reporters that after the comet circled the sun, passing through perihelion, “most probably the earth will pass through the tail.”35 This was nothing to worry about. When the earth entered the tail, said Charroppin, “those who expect a great pyrotechnic display will be disappointed. The tail of the comet, consisting of very tenuous matter, will not even penetrate our atmosphere. We will pass quietly through at the rate of eighteen and one-half miles a second, without suspecting 62

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that we are within the tail of a great comet.”36 This was tame stuff. A Charroppin stripped of his apocalyptic interpretation was not very interesting. His two months of national celebrity came to an abrupt end. The newspapers had little interest in the conventional view, a position they could obtain from any astronomer.

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All was not lost. Near the end of November 1909, Camille Flammarion wrote the article that reignited comet madness. Initially published in the New York Herald’s Paris edition, his story quickly crossed the Atlantic and spread across the United States. In substance, Flammarion’s article was little more than an astronomical bulletin, an update on the progress of Halley’s Comet. At the moment, wrote the astronomer, the comet was approaching the sun. When Professor Wolf spotted the object, it was roughly 522 million kilometers away. The comet advanced at approximately four million kilometers per day, and so, in the time since September, it had narrowed the distance to the sun to 226 million kilometers. Mathematicians had updated their calculations and now expected the comet to reach perihelion—its closest approach to the sun—on April 20. After slingshotting around the sun, the comet would head for earth, moving at a speed of 3,240 kilometers each minute. Its proximity to the sun would produce a marvelous effect: “Bathing in the effluvia of the electric, calorific, luminous radiation of the sun,” wrote Flammarion, “it becomes impregnated with its rays, undergoing in its whole being fantastic transformations which lend it prodigious glory, develop[ing] it by multiplying ten times, a hundred times, its volume, lengthening it to millions and millions of kilometers by a kind of phosphorescence which is always extended away from the sun and gives rise to the formidable tails which filled with terror the souls of our ancestors.”37 For viewers on earth, continued Flammarion, the comet would appear in the morning sky as it approached perihelion and then turned toward our planet. On May 18, the comet’s head would pass the earth at a distance of twenty-six million kilometers and the comet would move into the evening sky. 63

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Presumably, an editor at the New York Herald decided that Flammarion’s lengthy article would read better with the introduction of a few subtitles to break up the long paragraphs. An unfortunate choice, a subtitle that read “An Unheard of Menace,” interrupted Flammarion’s article at the point where he began describing what humans could expect as the earth passed through the comet’s tail. Since comet tails ranged from thirty to fifty million kilometers in length, it was clear that the tail “might envelope us for several hours. What will be the result of this meeting, of such an immersion?”38 Flammarion wrote that there was no need to rehash the various ways a comet could snuff out life on earth—what would be the point? “From the mechanical, physical, chemical and thermodynamic viewpoints, we may at once acknowledge that we know nothing of the fate reserved for us next May. The poisoning of humanity by deleterious gases is improbable.”39 These two sentences, carefully qualified with scientific reserve, proved problematic. The human mind demands certainty; people— especially those faced with potential death—want to know exactly what is going to happen. “Improbable,” a word that reflects scientific humility before the mysteries of the universe, fell well short of reassuring certainty. Flammarion did not help his case by explaining what improbable gaseous interactions might do to life on earth: Doubtless if the oxygen of the atmosphere combined with hydrogen of the comet’s tail it would mean universal death with short shrift. If, on the contrary, there resulted a diminution in the supply of nitrogen the brain of every one of us would experience an unexpected sensation of physical activity and the human race would come to a sudden end in a paroxysm of joy, universal delirium, and madness, at bottom, probably overjoyed at its date. Carbonic oxide, on the contrary, would cause universal poisoning of the lungs.40 In the preceding paragraph, Flammarion indicated that these possibilities were “improbable.” He emphasized the unlikeliness of these

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events with the conditional “if.” The scientist did not believe any of these dangerous interactions would happen, a point he emphasized in his conclusion: Anxious minds have, however, no reason to be tormented—uselessly too—by these prognostications. Comet tails, it is true, are immense, but they are so light, so rarefied, that the terrestrial atmosphere is like lead in comparison. Even were our globe completely plunged into such a tail we would, without doubt, be saved from a cataclysm by the atmospheric curtain which surrounds us. The comet might be compared to a fog through which a locomotive was dashing at full speed.41 “Without doubt,” the comet’s tail posed no danger to the earth or its inhabitants. Earth, like a charging locomotive blasting through a wispy comet fog, would emerge unscathed. Our thick atmosphere, the equivalent of a lead shield, would protect the planet. We might see increased meteor activity, suggested Flammarion, or dramatic displays of the aurora borealis, but that was it. The planet had passed through comet tails twice in the previous century without incident. There was nothing to fear— at least not until the newspapers picked up the story.

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Chapter Six

The Unexpected Visitor

Comets, importing change Of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky And with them scourge the bad revolting stars —William Shakespeare, Henry VI, act 1, scene 1 Editors quickly twisted Flammarion’s words. Ignoring the careful qualifications and his claim that the earth’s thick atmosphere made our planet impervious to comet gases, the editors ran dramatic accounts that quoted his opinions out of context. The Manchester Guardian printed the first oblique reference to the story: “M. Camille Flammarion, who has been foretelling in the Paris edition of the ‘New York Herald’ the dreadful things that may happen if the tail of Halley’s comet envelopes the earth next year, has for over thirty years made a special study of the planet Mars.”1 Newspapers on the American side of the Atlantic supplied the details. On December 19, 1909, the Washington Post mentioned Flammarion’s views in a story about British astronomers. “The ‘tail’ of the great Halley comet,” wrote the Post, “which, according to M. Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer, may make every one die in a delirium of joy or in an agony of suffocation as it brushes past the earth, has already made its influence felt at Greenwich Observatory.”2 According to the Post, English comet watchers were grinning with joy as they studied the approaching comet through their telescopes. “This 67

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may be the first sign of the paroxysm of mirth and delirium in which M. Flammarion says the human race may perish on or about May 18, when the 50,000,000-mile-long tail of Halley’s comet envelopes the earth and snatches away all the nitrogen from the air, leaving us only the too exhilarating oxygen to breathe.”3 The Guardian and the Post misrepresented Flammarion’s position. They led their readers—who probably had not read the original story— to believe that the astronomer was predicting “dreadful things” would happen when the tail swept across the earth, that there was a chance humanity would be exterminated when the tail robbed the planet of nitrogen or plunged humanity into a cloud of toxic laughing gas. Flammarion had not advanced the claims attributed to him. He believed that the earth’s thick atmosphere would protect the planet from comet gases. A few editors, recognizing this, offered their support. One syndicated wire service story blamed the New York Herald for the growing number of wild stories about the comet. As scientists studied the approaching comet with delight, the “New York Herald believes the feature of greatest interest is the probable effect of the comet on the earth. Will it run afoul of this planet and if it does, what will be the result?”4 Speculative writers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells had based fanciful books around this question, but “M. Flammarion . . . looks on the stories of a cataclysm to come as farcical.”5 Despite this attempt to clear Flammarion, stories linking the scientist to wild predictions about death and destruction in May gained momentum. Stories that contained a tint of terror, the sharp tang of smoke from the apocalypse, were far more profitable than dull predictions of a harmless tail. Flammarion’s “claims” sold papers; profit catalyzed their spread across the country. The fated year 1910 opened before an uncertain future. Would any humans survive to hoist glasses on New Year’s Eve 1911, or was civilization destined to end in May? Early traces of comet madness rose like slow bubbles in a champagne glass. In Germany, reported the Los Angeles Times, Camille Flammarion’s mischievous prophecies had sparked a growing terror among the country’s peasants. “It has got abroad that he [Flammarion] 68

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says Halley’s Comet will probably come into collision with the earth in March, in which event it will destroy this mundane sphere.”6 Predictably, continued the paper, this news “had played hob generally with the peasantry” and “has caused excitement even among the more enlightened citizens.”7 A town councilor in Cologne, Germany—a man of wealth, sophistication, and position—refused to support a plan to improve the city’s water supply. Why bother? asked the politician, “since the world is to be destroyed in a month or two?”8 There was certainly no reason to waste money on foolish infrastructure improvements. The peasants of Silesia, wrote the Times, had succumbed to Epicureanism. They drained their bank accounts and spent their savings with wild abandon. What was the point of squirreling away cash for a future that would never arrive? Farmers in Baden, Germany, refused to plant their crops. Farmwork was a pointless expenditure of effort. “The comet would bring destruction with it before the crops could ripen.”9 Although these fears were baseless, noted the Times, they all originated from a common source: Camille Flammarion’s so-called prophecies, which many Europeans were receiving “as the Gospel truth.”10 Concerned by the rapid societal breakdown, local governments were planning campaigns in the local newspapers and magazines to debunk the astronomer’s frightening views. Something must be done to check the fear spreading through the peasantry and to convince their citizens that the approaching comet was harmless. The Times story, emblematic of much of the newspaper coverage to come, would have benefited from even rudimentary fact-checking before it was sent to the printers. The larger inaccuracies are readily apparent—no astronomer, and most certainly not Camille Flammarion, had predicted earth’s destruction in March. Halley’s Comet was not even supposed to approach the earth until May. The orbital math had been locked down for months, facts that Flammarion had publicly endorsed. The claim that he predicted a comet strike in March was nonsense. And what about those German farmers who were refusing to plant their crops, believing that their labor would be burned to ash in a cometary collision? The Times published this story on January 2, roughly 69

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two weeks after the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. What crops would farmers normally be planting in their frozen, possibly snow-covered fields? The story—as rootless as unplanted crops—advanced a theme that was common in early-twentieth-century American newspapers: the folly of foreigners. Hearing the clarion call of a madman’s prophecies, unsophisticated “peasants” regressed to their normal irrational behavior. Foreigners were an uneducated, superstitious lot. They lacked the common sense and sophistication of Americans; it was no surprise that they would be the first to succumb to Flammarion’s scaremongering. The Times story emphasized the credulity of the European masses, a nativist slant that reinforced the prejudices of its readers. Although foreigners might fall for Flammarion’s provocative and attention-seeking prophecies, there was no danger that sober and sensible Americans would be fooled. As newspapers reprinted the stories of Flammarion’s wild theories, trustworthy American scientists were already hard at work debunking them. In Pittsburgh, astronomers John Brashear and Frank Schlesinger “rolled up their scientific sleeves and belabored Camille Flammarion’s prediction that Halley’s comet, when it comes our way on May 18 will smash the earth to bits.”11 Echoing the precise view that Flammarion had advanced in late November, Brashear noted that even though the tail of the comet would sweep the earth, it would cause no harm. There was no reason to fear the arrival of Halley’s Comet. Dr. Schlesinger added a harsh appraisal of the great French astronomer: “Flammarion’s prediction is absurd.” His views were a “pipe dream.”12 Schlesinger agreed with his colleague, Dr. Brashear: no danger could possibly come to the earth. In New York, Professor Searle, who had done the early work refining the estimate of the comet’s path, was more diplomatic. He suggested that the newspapers reporting the story might have misunderstood Flammarion’s position. “I know Camille Flammarion personally, and he is an able man. However, he is given to declaring that a certain thing will happen ‘if ’ it does not do something else. People do not notice this qualification and accept his prophecies of disaster as positive.”13 70

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There is no doubt that Flammarion had offered a discussion of what might happen “if ” gases in the tail mixed with the earth’s atmosphere, but he had also emphatically stated that the impact between the ephemeral comet tail and the “lead-like” shield of the earth’s atmosphere would not affect the earth whatsoever. Searle also expressed optimism about the good sense of the American people. “I have not heard of any becoming frightened in this country over the possibilities of Halley’s comet. . . . It will have no more effect than a slight breeze sweeping over the land.”14

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While earth’s distracted astronomers focused their telescopes on the approaching Halley’s Comet, a second celestial traveler, Comet A1910, slipped unexpectedly through the back door and caught observers off guard. The comet (also known as the Great Daylight Comet of 1910) first appeared in the skies of the Southern Hemisphere. As in the days of Edmond Halley, the southern skies received considerably less attention than the northern. Three South African diamond miners spotted the comet on January 12, 1910. Robert Innes, director of Johannesburg’s Transvaal Observatory, confirmed the sighting and telegraphed the news north. A transcription error in the message credited the discovery to an astronomer named “Drake,” but ultimately this was corrected. The comet climbed into the Northern Hemisphere and grew brighter. Soon it was visible across America, glowing in the western sky right after sunset. Its sudden appearance confused the public. “Many are under the impression that this is Halley’s Comet, which has suddenly appeared in the neighborhood of the sun,” said Mr. G. G. Blair, a resident of Topeka, Kansas, who, the local newspaper claimed, had the distinction of knowing more about comets than any other man in the city.15 “It, however, is not Halley’s Comet, but an entirely new one. . . . Halley’s Comet is jogging along in its proper orbit, but will probably not be a naked eye object, at least not a brilliant one, before the first of March at the earliest.”16 Astronomers tracked the new comet and calculated its orbit. Comet A1910 reached perihelion—its closest approach to the sun—on January 17, 1910. By late January, the comet could be seen shortly after sunset. 71

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Clear winter skies over the New England seaboard offered excellent viewing conditions. Nevertheless, the comet dimmed rapidly as it moved away from the earth. No one should fear that this was Halley’s Comet, off-course and accelerating toward the earth, wrote the newspapers. Comet A1910 occupied a different portion of the sky: it could be found in the constellation Andromeda. Halley’s Comet stood a little to the right of Saturn and Mars. Moreover, even as Comet A1910 flaunted its glowing tail for evening sky watchers, Halley’s Comet still required a telescope. Halley’s Comet was coming; A1910 was simply an unexpected warm-up act before the main performance. And, announced the astronomers, Comet A1910 was completely harmless. Not everyone was convinced. Once again, reported the newspapers, European peasants were in a tizzy. In Italy, an old crone, a known “dabbler in astrology,” terrified her neighbors with dire forecasts prompted by the new comet’s unexpected arrival. This sudden appearance signified disaster; she predicted “a cataclysm and hints that the comet may cause a conflagration, thus confirming the prophecy of Malachi, with which she also connects the ‘burning fire’ of the present Pope’s Latin motto.”17 The elderly soothsayer created a stir and converted many to her view. “Among the ignorant,” noted a dispatch from Rome, “the mere announcement that a comet is visible is causing excitement and fear, as they still retain the ancient Roman belief in the evil influence of certain planets.”18

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Although most serious scientists didn’t believe that comets could influence natural phenomena on earth, disquieting reports spread. The hot springs of Arrowhead, California, increased their rate of flow, a fact that locals attributed to the presence of two comets in the neighborhood of the earth. Then, just as Comet A1910 began to recede, a further disaster struck. Heavy rains falling in eastern and central France raised the level of the Seine River. On January 20, the river overflowed its Parisian banks. It rose another foot during the following twenty-four hours, and mud-yellow water spread through downtown Paris. Wine cellars along 72

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the quays flooded; the newly commissioned subway tunnels filled with water; the inundation swamped basements and tore at foundations. City residents watched the Eiffel Tower, fearing a collapse as the river scoured the earth beneath its iron feet. The powerful flood filled the ancient caverns and limestone mines beneath the city. Raging water opened sinkholes; a portion of the Boulevard de Saint Germain collapsed, sagging into the water-torn void. Debris and drowned rats swirled in the dark waters. Rescue workers pulled twenty human corpses, victims of the catastrophe, from the river. Bitter winter cold swept the country, adding to the misery of those who had been forced from their homes. Although Paris’s plight commanded the world’s attention, the flooding was not restricted to France’s capital. At the high-water mark, more than 25 percent of France was underwater. Floods overwhelmed towns and villages. Swollen rivers washed over bridges; the relentless rain transformed peaceful streams into torrential flows. National flooding overwhelmed emergency workers; the military was deployed to assist in disaster relief. By January 24, the relentlessly rising Seine had broken all previous flood records. It was twenty-five feet above its normal winter level and threatened to wash away the steel Pont des Arts bridge near the Louvre. The flooding compromised the city’s supply of fresh drinking water; the sewer system was backed up and out of commission; waterborne illnesses like typhus and cholera threatened to ravage the population. And yet the water continued to rise. Monsieur Lepine, the prefect of Paris, after inspecting the disaster zone, told reporters that he had no answers. “The Weather Bureau,” he said, “forecasts a further rise of thirty centimeters tonight. I do not know what to do in the face of this situation.”19 With the subway system shut down and most streets under water, Parisians moved about their city in boats. The telegraph lines were down; trains were limited; the two paper mills that provided the newsprint for Paris’s tabloids were threatened by the rising water and set to close. The cold rain continued; the Seine inched higher. The city’s right bank “is assuming more and more the appearance of a vast island,” wrote the correspondent for the New York Times. “The plains and lowlands 73

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lying between the serpentine bends of the river at the outskirts are deeply covered with water, and some of the small suburban villages have almost completely vanished beneath it.”20 Flood debris trapped on the upstream side of the city’s bridges formed vast dams of material that increased the pressure on the swamped superstructures. Authorities debated blowing up the bridges to ease the flow and help the Seine clear itself. As the city leaders contemplated alternatives, the river passed the twenty-seven-foot mark, still rising half an inch each hour. The river crept to within two inches of pouring over the quay that guarded the Louvre. Disaster loomed, from above and below. If the river washed over the quay, a torrent would pour into the museum. On the other hand, growing subterranean pressure strained the ancient sewer that ran near the Louvre’s basement. Teams of stone masons labored below the earth, reinforcing the concrete barrier between the sewer and the museum’s foundations. Finally, on January 29, the Seine crested. The official water gauge at Pont Royal stood at thirty feet, eight inches, beating the previous high-water mark recorded in 1615. The clouds cleared and the rain stopped. A hard, late January sun appeared as the river level slowly declined. Parisians left shelter to survey the damage. The flood had overwhelmed the sewer system, shattering the ancient masonry in many places. Water filled subway tunnels; roads sagged into massive sinkholes. Subterranean streams undermined and eroded foundations. Residents were shocked when a man delivering supplies near Jardin Paris suddenly vanished. The earth opened, consuming horse, driver, and delivery cart. Rescuers pulled the deliveryman from the sinkhole, but his horse and cart were lost. Where did a person dare walk? The ground beneath one’s feet was untrustworthy. The magnitude of the disaster overwhelmed its residents. More than three hundred thousand people were out of work; waterborne diseases threatened to decimate the population; most remained homeless: “No pen can picture the actual desolation that exists,” wrote the New York Times. “Enough people to form another great city have been evicted from their homes by the dirty yellow water, which now covers six and seven feet deep the familiar thresholds that they so lately trod. . . . The rudest 74

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kinds of boats, brought from the coast at the urgent order of the Government, ply to and from houses that cannot otherwise be reached.”21 Miles of wooden planks were arranged in temporary walkways above the stagnant water. Goods rotted in flooded shops; a horrific miasma, bubbling from the shattered sewers, hung over the depressed city.

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Who could have anticipated such a terrible disaster? Paris’s most famous astrologer, Madame de Thebes, quickly claimed credit. As the Seine receded she announced that she had predicted the disaster in her New Year’s forecast. A discovery of French writer Alexander Dumas, Madame de Thebes penetrated the mysteries of the future from her living room at 29 Avenue Wagrom, not far from the Etoile. Surrounded by gilt-edged mirrors, dark velvet draperies, and flickering candles, she received her guests like an occult queen upon her throne. Morning visitors paid $8 for the privilege of a consultation; those who arrived in the afternoon received a discounted rate ($4), for she believed that her powers were sharpest before noon. The seer specialized in bad news. “She fattens on the dread people have of dire events,” wrote one reporter, “and therefore refuses to predict pleasant future facts.”22 And why should she? Wasn’t grim news more consequential for humans? “I would like to predict fortunate things,” said Madame de Thebes, “but happiness doesn’t have to be announced. . . . God does not inform me of the fortunate events, and what is the use—happiness does not have to be avoided.”23 Madame de Thebe’s New Year’s forecast had been particularly bleak. There would be “violent storms and the subsidence of the cliffs” on France’s coasts. Volcanoes would be active, Europe was expected to suffer from “fire and the sea,” and North America could expect “maritime cataclysms” while South America suffered droughts. Politically, Russia and Belgium were heading for “considerable change” and rumors of war would circulate in Balkans as “general unrest” vexed Asia.24 The United States was destined to share Europe’s troubles. In the middle of January, Madame de Thebes welcomed an American journalist to her Parisian lair. “I am so glad you came,” she said, “for I have a message 75

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for your country, an important message.” Madame de Thebes predicted a wave of death—suicides and murders—about to sweep across the country. “We are out of orbit,” she continued. “Our souls have lost their proper places. I dare not say all that is revealed to me. It would frighten the people.” Financial disaster would increase the death toll. “You will pay dearly there for your riches and prosperity. A financial crash is impending, to be followed by a long string of suicides.” The aberrations already appearing in the celestial domain would soon be reflected in social upheaval and the disruption of the established order: “The times are swaying toward degeneration. Black ruling us, young men will marry old women for money. Young girls will marry old men.” A dire year lay ahead, noted de Thebes. It pained her to offer such grim tidings to the United States. “I am very fond of America,” she said. “She is one of the greatest of countries, but like all youth, she is too much life. Age will temper her.”25 The arrival of Comet A1910 and the subsequent flooding cemented Madame de Thebes’s reputation. Had she not predicted great catastrophes for France in 1910? “Violent storms and the subsidence of cliffs”? With less than a month run off the calendar, Paris’s foremost seer had demonstrated the accuracy of her predictions. Edwin Emerson, who released a book about Halley’s Comet in March, claimed that Madame de Thebes was more specific in her New Year’s forecast than the newspapers reported at the time. In fact, he wrote, rather than a vague prediction of “violent storms,” the astrologer had actually said, “This winter, France will be swept by terrible floods. Paris will be under water. The influence of form changes in other planets and the coming of a Comet will affect us for the worse.”26 Emerson then reprinted the prediction of a coming financial disaster in America, and—unlike the seer—linked this prophecy to Halley’s Comet: “With the coming of another Comet, disaster will descend upon America.”27 De Thebes’s widely disseminated prediction of violent storms in France conferred credibility. The awkward fact that storms were a common winter feature on the continent and the predicted “subsidence of cliffs” appeared to suggest coastal inundations washed away in the Parisian floodwaters. Clearly Madame de Thebes foresaw the Paris flood 76

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coming in the stars, and Emerson neatly tied Paris’s troubles to Comet A1910. It was a victory for the astrologers and their media propagandists.

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But could a comet affect the weather in such an extreme way? The scientists were divided. Edmond Halley had devoted some of his prodigious intellectual energy to pondering whether a comet was responsible for the great Genesis flood. Perhaps, he speculated, if a comet passed very close to the earth, its gravitational pull might create a bulge of water in the seas that would overrun the coasts and cause flooding. The eighteenth-century French astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace, writing in his Exposition du système du monde (The System of the World), offered a different explanation. He suggested that a comet strike tilted the earth. The shock waves from the impact triggered massive flooding and a universal deluge, destroying all but a few humans and a handful of animals. Neither of these scenarios applied in this case. Comet A1910 had not passed close enough to jar the earth nor stir up a tidal wave. But did that mean its baleful influence could not reach across space to affect the planet? As flooding spread eastward and touched Italy, forcing evacuations in Rome, Turin, and Venice, newspapers asked the obvious question: were Comet A1910, Halley’s Comet, or a combination of the two, responsible for this disaster? Henri-Alexandre Deslandres, the director of France’s Meudon Observatory, thought it likely. It was reasonable to believe that a comet’s tail could cause condensation in the atmosphere leading to extraordinary rainfall and flooding. “Theories of astronomy and physics actually accepted admit that the tail of a comet is illumined only by the cathodic rays emanating from the sun,” explained Deslandres. X-rays were generated when the sun’s energy struck the comet’s tail. It was a well-established fact, noted Deslandres, that X-rays produced the condensation of water vapor. “The nearer a comet is to the earth, the more formidable this process of condensation would be.”28 Solar radiation, 77

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striking the comet’s tail, generated X-rays, which, impinging on the earth’s atmosphere, condensed water droplets, creating rain. Camille Flammarion dismissed this idea with a single word: “ridiculous.” His colleagues were less certain. As Paris dried out, scientists around the world debated the possibility.29 Historical evidence suggested a correlation between comets and flooding. Halley’s Comet was associated with a number of great floods in the past. During the comet’s 1531 passage, water inundated Holland, killing one hundred thousand. In 1607, the Severn River overran its banks between England and Wales, claiming another hundred victims. Biela’s Comet appeared during the great Yorkshire flood of 1833, and two French floods in 1839 and 1845. Were these episodes mere coincidence? It seemed unlikely. Perhaps Deslandres’s X-ray theory was correct and comets did have a profound effect on the atmosphere and weather. After all, noted Deslandres, “However distant comets may be, it is not impossible that their enormous tails, measuring 75,000,000 to 125,000,000 miles in length, may come in contact with our atmosphere. The theory that a comet may disturb the atmosphere of the earth, causing rains of great duration, and consequently inundations and the sudden overflow of rivers, is not at all absurd. It may, at all events, be sustained by scientific reasoning.”30 The Catholic Church offered an alternate theory. Speaking in New Orleans, Cardinal James Gibbon, the highest-ranking ecclesiastical leader in the United States, attributed the flooding to God’s displeasure. “[The flood] is deplorable,” declared the cardinal. “We cannot question God’s decrees, nor sit in judgment upon the afflicted, but surely this national disaster should have the effect of making the French people think of what they have done to the religious communities. The methods they have used have been the most cruel, and they have singled out religious organizations from all others for their persecutions.”31 The flood was God’s response to French impiety. The recipients of this divine chastisement would do well to alter their behavior before God chose a more aggressive punishment. Was God responsible for the flood? At a meeting of the French Academy of Science—attended by distinguished members decked out 78

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in fashionable rubber boots—reporters pressed Camille Flammarion for an opinion. “Rain caused the flood,” growled France’s most famous astronomer. “At a certain time a thin veil of haze may assemble over a certain part of this planet, when the comet draws a little nearer, but we cannot for a moment hold the comet responsible for this flood.”32 He expanded his explanation four days later. In a report released on February 10, Flammarion noted that Comet A1910 had been visible across the world, marked by observers in Vladivostock, Algeria, Europe, and Chicago. “If the comet could exert any influence on floods,” argued Flammarion, “we do not see why it should have acted exclusively on the waters of the Seine. There is no reason in such a case, why all the rivers of the world should not have overflowed at the same time. We should have been present at a new universal deluge. But we have known for a long time that comets have no influence on the terrestrial atmosphere.”33 In America, Professor E. B. Frost of the Yerkes Observatory seconded Flammarion’s opinion: “there is no reason for connecting the Paris flood with the comet or any catastrophe with any astronomical phenomena.”34 Despite the emphatic declarations from two of the world’s leading astronomers, survivors of the Paris floods remained unconvinced. “There is a disposition in France,” reported the Bisbee Daily Review (AZ), “to attribute the phenomenal floods and their attendant catastrophes from which the country is suffering to the influence of the ‘tramp’ comet (A1910) or to Halley’s. . . . There is more or less ground for the French opinion, if Frenchmen pay any attention to astronomers of the sensational school, who have hinted that Halley’s comet may affect the weather.”35 This unresolved question raised another: if Comet A1910, which had not passed very close to the earth, could alter the world’s weather so dramatically, what meteorological disasters might the arriving Halley’s Comet produce?

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Chapter Seven

Cyanogen Gas!

Comet Full of Peril! Halley’s May Possibly Snuff Out Life on the Earth. —St. Alban’s (VT) Daily Messenger, February 8, 1910 The unexpected appearance of Comet A1910 and the catastrophic flooding of Paris planted fear in the hearts of many around the world. Church officials in Guadalajara, Mexico, reported an increase in the number of pilgrims traveling to the Shrine of the Virgin of Talpa. Although nothing in the historical records suggests that La Chaparrita, the Virgin of Talpa, had any particular influence with comets, that did not deter the hundreds of pilgrims making the long walk to the shrine. Many of the faithful crawled for miles on their hands and knees. “Consternation reigns,” reported Salt Lake City’s Deseret Evening News, “among the more superstitious class.”1 Superstition enjoyed no monopoly in Mexico. Edward Trevis, a resident of El Paso, Texas, drew considerable attention when he stepped off a train at the Southern Pacific depot in Tucson. Pitching his voice to reach the passengers waiting in the station, Trevis announced that he was a prophet, the voice of God, on his way to call Los Angeles’s depraved sinners to repentance. Like the great Hebrew prophet Jonah, Trevis bore a chilling message: now approaches the “end of all things earthly.”2 Trevis awoke to his calling as one of God’s emissaries when he saw Comet A1910 flaming in the evening sky. His departure from El Paso 81

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was delayed because God failed to provide the necessary transportation expenses. After a bit of fundraising, Trevis overcame this omission and boarded a westbound train. The earth was doomed, thundered the railway prophet. Halley’s Comet would strike the planet with “a dull, sickening thud that would reverberate through the known universe. The earth would then burst into a mighty flame that would consume this old sphere and everything thereon.”3 Few days remained; it was imperative that Trevis reach Los Angeles and snatch as many brands from the flames as possible. He also felt compelled to share his revelations with the travelers in the Tucson train station, but they appeared unimpressed. “Judging by the reception accorded him, they fell on barren soil,” reported the Albuquerque Journal.4 In parting, Trevis pronounced a final verdict on unrepentant Tucson. “Woe, woe, woe unto the inhabitants of the world when that day cometh!”5 He then boarded his carriage and continued on to Los Angeles. After flashing like a meteor across the pages of the national press, the newspapers lost interest in the itinerant prophet. He returned to the obscurity that had characterized his life.

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A California audience existed for Trevis’s message. Comet A1910 had spooked at least one resident of Los Angeles County. On Saturday morning, January 29, police in Calabasas, California, a small town northwest of Los Angeles, found a laborer named George Fralich lying near death in an irrigation ditch. Fralich, his neighbors told reporters, was obsessed with the idea that Halley’s Comet was going to destroy the earth. He “had been wandering about Calabasas for several days, mumbling about the terrible destruction which will be wrought when the comet comes in contact with terra firma.”6 Friday night, unmanned by his demons, Fralich hiked out of town, carrying a straight razor in his hand. Reaching a lonely spot, he drew the blade across his wrist and stumbled on, blood leaking from his arm. Sheriff ’s deputies traced his steps, following the trail of blood spatters in the dust. He had walked for “a distance” before collapsing. The driver 82

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of a passing car spotted his body and alerted the police. The officers rushed Fralich to the hospital where a surgeon staunched the bleeding and repaired the damage to the workman’s wrist. “He was,” reported the Los Angeles Times, “weak from the loss of blood,” but expected to make a complete recovery.7 A little luck and prompt action cheated the comet of its first victim.

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Meanwhile, Camille Flammarion had a public relations problem: America’s newspapers were determined to cast him as a prophet of cometary doom. Despite his explicit pronouncement in late November that the comet’s tail could not penetrate the earth’s thick atmosphere and posed no danger to the planet, editors continued to cite him as a source for the view that destruction was possible and, indeed, probable. On February 1, 1910, Flammarion published an update in the New York Herald about the approaching comet, a second attempt to explain his true position to American readers.8 Flammarion’s article opened with a strong salvo against those newspapers that were attributing false views to him: “I would like, first of all, to warn the French and foreign journalists against a temptation to which they have already yielded—that of accusing me of announcing the end of the world for May 19 next. “The end of the world will not occur on May 19 next.”9 Could the astronomer have been any clearer? Flammarion did not consider the comet a threat to humanity. This emphatic sentence unambiguously established his position. Of course, being Flammarion, there was much more to discuss. His article continued with a full account of all the latest comet news: when the comet would reach perihelion, the time at which it would pass between earth and sun, the points on the globe that were best placed to observe the comet’s transit. It was to be hoped, remarked Flammarion, that astronomers would learn much about the composition of both nucleus and tail as the comet flew past the sun. At its closest approach, the comet would pass fifteen million miles from earth. Comet tails often exceeded that length, so it was highly likely 83

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that the earth would pass through the tail. “For several hours,” wrote Flammarion, “we will be immersed in the gaseous caudal appendage, whose chemical constitution is still little known and moreover differs according to the nature of the comets.”10 Flammarion then explored a tangent that, albeit logically sound, might have been a distraction in the context of an article devoted to clearing his name. Learned men had recently offered the fallacious view that since the earth had passed through comet tails in the past, there could be no possible danger from Halley’s Comet. “This reasoning,” wrote Flammarion, “was fantastical.” It was similar to claiming that “because the autobus that plied the route between Batignolies and the Odeon had not run over anyone in 1909, it wouldn’t kill a pedestrian in 1910.”11 In fact, noted Flammarion, maybe the bus’s commendable safety record was due to the fact that no pedestrians had stood in the street as it lumbered past. The claim that the earth faced no danger because of the precedent of earlier comets defied logic: “If Halley’s comet has done nothing to us until now, it is, first of all, because we were not in its way and it did not meet us. This year it is entirely different.”12 Flammarion felt compelled to correct this erroneous reasoning—it is a mistake to assert that something won’t happen simply because it has not happened in the past. Nevertheless, there were better reasons to believe that the tail was harmless. As the earth blazed a path around the sun at a speed of 106,000 kilometers per hour, we shall “traverse this gaseous tail as a cannon ball traverses a light fog, this tail being, so to speak, immaterial, especially at such a distance from the head.”13 The event would be memorable, concluded Flammarion; there might be increased meteor showers, electrical phenomena like the aurora borealis, or ethereal glimmerings in the upper atmosphere. The comet’s approach to our planet might concern the aliens living on Venus and Mars, but since they probably believed that the earth was uninhabited, they might not even pay attention to the event. Flammarion’s letter refuted the journalists who were misrepresenting his views. It was consistent with every statement the astronomer offered about the impact of the tail on the earth’s atmosphere. The astronomer 84

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was convinced that the comet’s tail was too insubstantial to make any impression on the deep layer of gas that cloaks our planet. He had articulated that view in late 1909 and continued to defend it in February. The earth, like a fast-moving cannon ball or a charging elephant, would dash through the wisps of cometary gas unharmed. It didn’t matter what unknown poisonous gases populated the tail; they could not harm the planet. Had American newspapers disseminated this article widely, Flammarion’s reputation might have been cleared. The Associated Press made certain that would not happen. A redacted version of the astronomer’s article went out over the newswire, a version that eliminated several of his important claims. Gone, for example, was his criticism of newspapers for misrepresenting his views. Gone was his emphatic claim that the comet offered no threat to the earth and the declaration that the end of the world was not on its way. The Associated Press stripped all statements that exonerated Flammarion. The wire service version began with the claim that the earth would spend several hours in the comet’s tail on May 19 and ended with a note of reassurance: “Little danger need be expected, for the tail will probably be so rarefied as to be inoffensive.”14 Probably? Readers of the Associated Press’s heavily redacted version would never learn that the press was twisting the astronomer’s views. It was far more profitable to relegate Flammarion to the bin of false prophets and doomsayers like Edward Trevis. The Frenchman was far more interesting as a twentieth-century Jonah, counting down the days until the earth’s humans were gassed like rats.

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Although most American newspapers continued to claim falsely that Camille Flammarion had predicted the end of the earth, a few editors with access to the full version published in the New York Herald conveyed his reassuring message to their readers. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for instance, noted that although the earth would pass through the tail on May 19, most readers wouldn’t even notice that it was happening; there 85

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was no cause for alarm. “For this information the public is indebted to Camille Flammarion. He assures us that the comet will not come nearer than 15,000,000 miles and he positively declares that the end of the earth is not going to be an incidental outcome of this event.”15 Accurately citing the position Flammarion had advanced in the New York Herald, the Post-Gazette appreciated the clarity Flammarion brought to the discussion: “On the whole Mons. Flammarion’s description in the New York Herald of this astral cut-up is reassuring. So many persons attach dire significance to comets that it is pleasant to learn from the familiars about their harmless and inoffensive conduct.”16 “There is no doubt,” continued the editorial, “that Halley’s is blamed by millions for startling freaks of weather during the past few weeks, extremes which have been recorded in many parts of the earth, as well as for such calamities from floods as have occurred in France and Italy. Therefore, Flammarion is serving a good purpose by pointing out, as he does, the nature of the coming display.”17 The Post-Gazette’s accurate presentation of Flammarion’s views was a rarity among American newspapers. Most continued to disparage and misrepresent the French astronomer. An editorial in Missouri’s Kansas City Times noted that Flammarion was predicting that “the tail of Halley’s comet will envelop the earth on May 19.” This alarming news, continued the Times, was one of the reasons that people regarded the astronomer as “one of the foremost astronomers on Mr. Hearst’s staff, being what might be termed an astronomical muckraker.”18 An editorial in the Bangor Daily News in Maine noted—under the headline “Flammarion’s Scare”—that the astronomer “like most sensible persons thinks we are all safe, and may pursue the even tenor of our ways without taking out extra life insurance or making our will, though both precautions are wise at any time.”19 So far so good. Had the newspaper concluded the editorial at that point, it would have rendered a fine service to its readers. But that would have been far less interesting than what it actually wrote. The Bangor Daily News continued with a frightening scenario that appears in none of the astronomer’s writings: “Flammarion is somewhat worried about the 86

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substances which compose the comet and its tail.” As the comet made its turn around the sun, “there will be a critical period of a few days near the orbit of Mercury, when affairs will be very uncertain.”20 The proximity to the sun meant that the comet might capture “an unusual amount of caloric [energy] from the heated space through which it passes, and coming back again, all hot and steaming, as it were, the comet may bring along deleterious gases.”21 Terrible things might happen if these terrible gases combined with the earth’s atmosphere. If the tail consisted of deoxidized sodium or potassium, it might immediately absorb all of the earth’s atmosphere, suffocating humanity and burying the planet in a blanket “many feet deep of caustic soda or caustic potash.”22 If the tail contained calcium gas, it would convert atmospheric nitrogen into nitrite of lime “which is worth about $90 a ton wholesale as a concentrated plant food.”23 Humans would be exterminated, but the soil would be left so fertile that the earth would produce stalks of corn that were fifty feet tall. This was journalistic malpractice. Flammarion had not offered any of these dire predictions. The Bangor Daily News’ attribution of these views to him was unnecessarily alarmist and completely false. Although this editorial didn’t spread to a wire service or achieve national syndication, it demonstrated what American newspaper editors were willing to do to sell their product. Flammarion might try to clear his name, but the editor of the Bangor Daily News had no intention of allowing him off the hook.

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The Bangor Daily News was not a large national newspaper; its small circulation limited the spread of its misstatements. The same could not be said of the Washington Post, an important national publication. The newspaper printed a wire service article under a London dateline that opened with: “The opinion of the well-known French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, that there is possible danger in the approach of the Halley comet which may gravely affect the earth on May 18, is not shared by all astronomers.”24 The article then detailed the opposing viewpoints of several French astronomers—Rigourdan, Baillaud, and Deslandres—who were all eager to assure the public that the comet’s 87

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tail was too rarefied to harm the earth—a restatement of Flammarion’s well-publicized opinion. The article was syndicated and printed in newspapers across America. Once again, despite his attempts to disassociate himself from these fabricated claims, Flammarion was thrust into the position of prophesying the end of the world. “The Washington Post gives out a few facts concerning the great Halley comet,” wrote the editor of North Carolina’s West Carolina Enterprise, “which, according to M. Flammarion, the French astronomer, will brush the earth in its furious rush through space on or about May 18th. The 50,000,000-mile long tail of the comet will envelop the earth and snatch away all the nitrogen from the air, leaving us only the too exhilarating oxygen to breathe. This, it is stated, may make everyone die in a delirium of joy or an agony of suffocation.”25 The Washington Post story ignored Flammarion’s published views, setting him up as a counterweight to “sensible” astronomers who, upon close examination, simply articulated the same views Flammarion had advanced in November and repeated in February. Although this media malfeasance might have appeared harmless at the time, that was about to change.

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On February 7, astronomers at the Yerkes Observatory made a shocking announcement: spectrographic analysis had detected the presence of cyanogen gas in the tail of Halley’s Comet.26 Discovered in 1815 by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, cyanogen—a relative of cyanide—was a fatal toxin. As the New York Times wrote in a front-page story, “Cyanogen is a very deadly poison, a grain of its potassium salt touched to the tongue being sufficient to cause instant death.”27 It is a gas that, in an uncombined state, continued the Times, had a blue tint. Chemically it behaved like chlorine gas, and it possessed an almond smell. The Yerkes analysis was communicated to the astronomers at Harvard University and other scholars around the globe, including Camille Flammarion. “Professor Flammarion is of the opinion that the cyanogen gas would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet,” continued the story.28 Naturally, most astronomers did not agree 88

Cyanogen Gas!

with Flammarion’s alarmist view, as the gases in a comet’s tail were too rarefied to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere. In some quarters, common sense fought bravely—yet still lost— against media malpractice. On February 9, Professor Edward Pickering, the director of the Harvard Observatory, waded into the cyanogen gas scare, addressing Flammarion’s alleged prediction. The prominent astronomer told a reporter, “I don’t believe Flammarion said that. However, if he did, it will have no weight with astronomers of standing, as they concur in the belief that there is absolutely no danger to be feared.”29 He then repeated the established view of the international astronomical community: the earth’s thick atmosphere protected humanity from any danger. Professor Pickering concluded his commentswith a brief critique of the newspapermen who were extracting profits from their frightening stories: “Too many of these rumors are owing to the efforts of cheap sensationalists, who desire free advertising.”30 The wire services picked up this interview with Pickering and transmitted it to their member newspapers. Local papers played with the story’s headline, changing it to suggest discord in the scientific community. The article’s opening sentence read: “Professor E. C. Pickering, director of [the] Harvard observatory, scoffed at the report from Paris that Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer, had been quoted as declaring that wholesale extinction of life will follow the passing of the earth through the nebulae of Halley’s comet on May 18.”31 Although this sentence was ambiguous—did Pickering scoff at Flammarion’s wild claim, or did he scoff at the report that Flammarion had predicted global asphyxiation?—the rest of the short article should have settled the question. In the article’s second sentence, Pickering expressed doubt that Flammarion had made such a statement and, as noted above, he concluded his remarks with a statement of concern about the sensationalists who produced false claims about the dangers of the tail. The full article reveals that Professor Pickering had scoffed at the newspaper reports that attributed this view to Flammarion. A reader never would have guessed the article’s message from the headlines that appeared above it in the local papers. “Scoffs at Flammarion,” 89

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wrote Ohio’s Bucyrus Evening Telegraph; “Flammarion’s Predictions Are Scoffed At,” claimed the Buffalo Evening News; “Professor Pickering Scoffs at Prediction of French Astronomer,” offered the De Kalb Daily Chronicle in Illinois; “Astronomers Disagree: A Dispute Regarding the Danger to Be Apprehended from Comet,” noted Indiana’s Rushville Daily Republican; “Flammarion’s Theory of Destruction Flouted by Pickering,” suggested the Marysville Evening Tribune in Ohio.32 The reader who looked no further than these headlines would have believed that Professor Pickering was condemning the alarmist Flammarion when, in fact, he was “scoffing” at the wild rumors that newspapers had attributed to the French astronomer. Some newspapers colored even further outside the lines. The venerable Boston Globe, in a brief editorial, completely ignored Pickering’s message. After praising the professor’s reassuring words, the Globe noted that Pickering’s statement “should reassure those who have been alarmed by the vaporings of the sensational French astronomer, Flammarion. Of Flammarion, by the way, it had been said that the novelists call him an astronomer, while the astronomers regard him as a novelist.”33 History demonstrates that an oft-repeated lie takes root and grows into a fact. Misinformation that has hardened in people’s minds is difficult to dislodge. Even the intervention of illustrious colleagues might prove insufficient to redirect the stream of public opinion. Professor Pickering’s instinct was correct: Flammarion had not claimed that the comet’s cyanogen gas would exterminate life on earth. In fact, he hadn’t altered his position from the views he published in November and again in February: the earth was safe beneath its deep sheath of protective atmosphere.

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The cyanogen gas crisis quickly deepened. West Coast newspapers exploded with a statement by an American Flammarion—chemist Edwin Booth, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. According to the papers—and readers should by now be prepared to doubt the veracity of newspaper reporting in 1910—the professor had issued a frightening prediction about the newly discovered cyanogen gas. “If the astronomers are right in their estimations of the amount of 90

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cyanogen gas in the tail of Halley’s comet,” said Professor Booth, “and if that body’s vapors do envelop the earth, we may have a chance to feel the sensations of the bugs and insects which are killed by the use of this deadly gas as an exterminator.”34 This, reported the newspapers, was the “cheerful opinion” of the professor. “We will all be snuffed out, he said, if a sufficient quantity of this cyanogen gas unites with the hydrogen of this planet’s atmosphere.”35 The combination of hydrogen and cyanogen gas, explained Booth, would create a new compound, hydrocyanic acid, “the most deadly poison known to science, and which means death for all animals.”36 Snuffed out like bugs. Booth’s terrifying prophecy ran with a disclaimer: Professor Burckhalfer of Oakland’s Chabot Observatory disputed the danger. There was very little gas in the comet’s tail, he claimed, and people had nothing to fear. The nation’s astronomers quickly lined up behind Professor Burckhalfer. There should have been a second disclaimer. As a later story printed in the Oakland Tribune made clear, Professor Booth, after explaining the dangerous qualities of cyanogen gas, had concluded his statement with the opinion that the earth’s atmosphere would shield the planet from any harm.37 That critical qualification was not printed in any of the stories that exploded onto the pages of the nation’s newspapers. The precise wording of his reservations probably resembled the paragraph printed at the end of March: “I would not advise anyone to make his will on the strength of the possibility. The cyanogen gas in the comet’s tail is probably extremely rarefied, and might be repelled by the earth’s heavier atmosphere rather than attracted to it.”38 Although he did not rule out the possibility of cyanogen poisoning, it appeared that Professor Booth was speaking of probabilities rather than certainties. No reader in February 1910 would have known that, because his small expression of doubt was cut from the end of the story. The newspapers added Professor Booth to their gallery of cometary bogeymen. Professor Edwin Frost, director of the Yerkes Observatory, which had first reported that the comet’s tail contained cyanogen, immediately 91

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issued a statement to the press. “No, we are not all going to be snuffed out like bugs in the entomologist’s bottle when Halley’s comet wraps its tail around the earth,” he said. “The fact is that there isn’t the slightest danger. In the first place, the tail may not be long enough to reach the earth. In the second place, the density of this tail is so slight as to be nothing. . . .[It] is about the density of the so-called vacuum in an electric light bulb. “Now there is no doubt that what Professor Booth says is all right as hypothesis. Cyanogen is a deadly poison, and if it were present in sufficient quantity, it would no doubt mean death. Where he is misled is in his data.” The “luminous vagrant’s tail” didn’t have enough poison in it “to make a black beetle blink.”39 Harvard Professor William Pickering—brother of Professor Edward Pickering—dragged Flammarion into the fray, conflating the French astronomer’s views with the extermination theory of the California chemist: “Notwithstanding Professors Edwin Booth, of California, and Camille Flammarion to the contrary, the old earth has a long life ahead of it.” The gas in the tail was too diffuse; moreover, there was no free hydrogen in the earth’s atmosphere to combine with the cyanogen and form hydrocyanic gas. This was, concluded Pickering, “another astronomical bugbear.”40 The Oakland Tribune was less charitable. In an editorial released right after the cyanogen scare, the newspaper savaged the alarmist Flammarion. It had always been the case, noted the newspaper, that comets terrified the weak-minded and superstitious. Their sudden appearance allowed charlatans and prophets of doom to play on the primordial fears of the gullible. Although anyone could understand the impulse of a con man to exploit mental vulnerability, “it passes all understanding that men who are professional astronomers and chemists should predict calamity as the result of a periodical celestial phenomenon. . . . Camille Flammarion, the distinguished French astronomer, is reported to have predicted the direst disaster to the earth and its inhabitants as the result, ignoring the fact that the earth during the time of a generation now 92

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living, to which he belongs, has gone through the same experience without any evil effect.”41 Both Flammarion and Booth were too experienced as scientists to believe that the earth was in any danger from the comet. “It is the height of folly on the part of any university professor to give currency to such a foolish theory, because he must know that there is absolutely nothing to it. . . . The earth’s atmosphere is in itself a perfect shield for its own protection, as its density will be a positive preventive to the admission into it of the gaseous elements contained in the comet’s tail however deadly they may be.”42 It was a familiar sentiment; Camille Flammarion had written similar words a fortnight earlier.

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Wise men took action when faced with the threat of cyanogen asphyxiation. James Kenney, James Carpenter, and C. M. Green—all residents of Berkeley, California—conceived an innovative plan to protect themselves and their families from the comet’s deleterious effects. Drawing an idea from Jules Verne, they told local reporters that they planned to construct a submarine that would shield them from the deadly poison. Kenney was Berkeley’s fire chief and Carpenter was the fire marshal. Green was a marine engineer. The US War Department had sent him to California to study submarine design, so he was a perfect addition to the cyanogen-thwarting team. “‘The Berkeley’ is to be the name of the new ark,” wrote a reporter for the Oakland Tribune. “It is to be constructed along the lines of the Nautilus used by Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s famous novel, ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.’”43 The submarine would incorporate enough oxygen cylinders to allow the vessel to descend to a depth of 108 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. With this formidable water barrier overhead, the three men, their families, and a few selected friends would be protected from the deadly cyanogen gas storm that would destroy all life above the ocean’s surface. The submarine would hold enough food to feed the crew for several days. After the cyanogen dissipated, the California submariners could surface and begin the task of repopulating the globe. 93

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Green had finished the plans for the Berkeley, but it was not entirely clear that the men intended to proceed with construction. The original impetus for the project had come when Camille Flammarion allegedly stated that “should the great wanderer of the heavens bring the gas in large quantities it would snuff out life on this planet as the earth passed through the tenuous streamer of its passing tail.”44 Galvanized by this dire forecast, the three men “had begun to study and talk about their submarine ark.”45 When Flammarion’s forecast was rebutted by reputable scientists, “the future Noahs breathed a sigh of relief ” and suspended their plan to build the submarine.46 By this time, news of their endeavor spread through the community, and the trio began receiving inquiries from their neighbors. Many people attempted to book seats aboard the submarine, offering large sums of cash in their bid to avoid extermination. The growing number of inquiries turned into a nuisance, and the three men adopted a policy of refusing to discuss their project (except with newspaper reporters). Many Berkeley residents now regarded the trio with open hostility, accusing them of excessive self-interest. They were, concluded some, conspiring to save only their families and friends so that they would “have the world all to themselves after the event.”47 Despite its preposterous nature—could any naval shipyard have built Green’s submarine in the three months that remained before the comet arrived?—the Oakland Tribune offered this as a serious news story. The project was described soberly, as was the mounting anger in the community from those who would not secure tickets for the voyage to a post-cyanogen world. Moreover, although the three men had evidently abandoned their plans, there is nothing in the story to suggest that this had been a harebrained idea from the beginning. It made one think.

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From Science to Science Fiction

No more I weep, nor am I sad, Likewise I cease to wail; For Pick’ring says—and I am glad— All harmless is the comet’s tail. —Daily Notes (Canonsburg, PA), February 11, 1910 The three cyanogen submariners abandoned their plan when serious astronomers and scientists convinced them that cyanogen gas posed no threat to the planet. Perhaps they stopped work prematurely. Halley’s Comet was still moving toward the earth. Each day it narrowed the gap and grew a bit brighter. The comet had been an extremely faint object of magnitude 15.5 when Professor Wolf picked it out of the star field. Now, as March arrived, astronomers at England’s Greenwich Observatory reported the first appearance of a tenuous tail streaming away from a well-defined nucleus. The comet was emerging from the frozen winter of its long interstellar voyage.1 B. G. Way, a member of the Brooklyn Institute Astronomical Society, raised a tantalizing possibility: what if the inbound Halley’s Comet smashed into the departing Comet A1910? The latter, following a still-undefined orbital path, was moving toward Halley’s Comet. “Now,” stated Way, “will they pass as any well-regulated double track railway will permit two trains to pass, or will the two comets try the never successful experiment of two trains passing on the same track?”2 Since the tails of both comets stretched for millions of miles behind them, continued Way, there was a significant 95

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chance of entanglement. Moreover, in the depths of space, “all celestial objects attract each other proportioned to their masses,” and thus gravity might drag the heads into a fiery collision. Astronomers would see “a spectacle of commingling and tangled up masses in collision, such as had never been witnessed before.”3

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Collisions—between comets or between the earth and a comet— haunted reporters’ dreams. Most scientists dismissed Way’s suggestion of a cometary fender bender; few expected the two comets to smash into each other. But what if the astronomers had miscalculated the margin separating earth and comet when May arrived? What if some last-minute deviation drew the comet into the earth’s gravity field? Although human history contained no recollection of such an impact, science fiction writers had explored the possibility in their speculative novels. Jules Verne, the nineteenth century’s most successful science fiction writer, took up the theme in Hector Servadac (Off on a Comet: A Journey through Planetary Space) in 1877. His story begins when Comet Gallia struck the earth near Gibraltar and ricocheted away like a cue ball on a billiard table. The collision tore off a piece of the earth’s crust, scooping up seawater, shoreline, animals, and a ship loaded with humans. Humanity’s first astronauts sheltered in a volcano on the comet’s surface and survived the flight into deep space. After a two-year interstellar voyage, the comet orbited back to earth. Verne’s intrepid adventurers sewed their ship’s sails into a hot air balloon and floated across the gap as the comet slipped past the earth. Verne’s story relied on two close brushes with the comet, glancing collisions that tossed humans between the bodies unharmed. Critics scoffed at this implausible scenario. As his English translator, Charles Horne, noted, Off on a Comet “shows a marked contrast to Verne’s earlier books. . . . Verne asks us to accept a situation frankly impossible. The earth and a comet are brought twice into collision without mankind in general or even our astronomers becoming conscious of the fact. . . . These events all belong frankly to the realm of fairyland.”4 96

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More than a decade later, Camille Flammarion wrote his own comet story. In 1893, he published La Fin du Monde or, as it appeared in English-speaking countries, Omega: The Last Days of the World. Set in the twenty-fifth century, this novel offered a more realistic account of what a comet strike might do to the earth. Flammarion’s work also anticipated developments that would unfold in 1910. Although Flammarion’s story took place six hundred years in the future, society wasn’t dramatically different from late nineteenth-century France. After an anarchist’s bomb leveled Paris in 1950, builders filled the skyline with colossal skyscrapers. Air vehicles flitted through the sky, carrying Parisian commuters between terminals placed atop the towers. Servants had been replaced with evolved monkeys who performed menial tasks for their human masters. In a prescient leap, Flammarion unified the European nations, forging a new political alliance, the United States of Europe. These countries stood at the cultural and scientific center of the planet’s civilization—non-European countries, including the United States of America, had dwindled to insignificance, losing influence and importance in the twenty-fifth-century world.5 Flammarion’s tale commenced with the discovery of an approaching comet. Astronomers stationed at the observatory atop the Himalayan Mount Gaurishankar detected a comet emerging from the interstellar void. Their initial report caused no alarm, but after mathematicians plotted the new comet’s orbit, they discovered that it was on an intercept course with the earth. A collision was highly probable. Even if the comet narrowly missed the planet, its nucleus was sheathed in a toxic cloud of carbonic oxide that was thirty times larger than the diameter of the earth. The planet faced several hours of immersion in this deadly gas. Some scientists predicted that the carbonic oxide would consume all of the atmospheric oxygen in a moment; others believed that the mixing of the two gases would ignite the atmosphere and turn the earth into a fireball. When the news leaked, the planet’s newspapers sidled in like jackals, salivating at the prospect of profiting from the earth’s final days of terror. 97

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Although serious scientists—the astronomers—refused to grant interviews to the “beardless reporters constantly importuning them,”6 other “experts” from across the spectrum of credibility grasped at a final chance for celebrity. Quacks and pseudoscientists offered many “Interviews on the Comet” to the newspapers, which happily filled their front pages with contradictory opinions.7 Faced with imminent death, most of the people in Flammarion’s book slipped into a passive stupor. Workers shelved their tools; the international stock exchanges closed; people withdrew to their homes to await the end. The Martians, with whom earth was now in communication, sent light signals warning humans of their impending doom, predicting a point of impact in Italy. Unfortunately, even this advanced society lacked the technology to alter the comet’s course. The fated day—July 13—approached, and the comet revealed itself to the naked eye. “In full view of the earth it hovered now like a threat from heaven among the army of stars. Terror itself, advancing slowly but inexorably, was suspended like a mighty sword above every head.”8 Last-minute converts sought baptism in the church, while priests proclaimed the arrival of the tribulations predicted in the Apocalypse of Saint John. As the comet closed in, astronomers continued to debate the planet’s fate. On the eve of the strike, the French Academy predicted that the comet would destroy a limited area of the earth’s surface, and the atmosphere would protect the rest of the planet from the deadly carbonic oxide. “Let us then await the night of July 13–14 without despair,” announced the president of the academy. “I advise those who can to pass these fête days in Chicago, or better still in San Francisco, Honolulu or Noumea. The trans-Atlantic electric air-ships are so numerous and well managed that millions of travelers may make the journey before Saturday night.”9 The comet sped earthward, advancing at a dazzling speed of forty-one thousand meters per second. On the night before impact, the fireball filled the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon: The burning star had a revolution of its own, and seemed to be convulsed with pain, like a living thing. Immense jets of flame issued 98

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from various centers, some of a greenish hue, others red as blood, while the most brilliant were of a dazzling whiteness. It was evident that the sun was acting powerfully upon this whirlpool of gases, decomposing certain of them, forming detonating compounds, electrifying the nearer portions, and repelling the smoke from about the immense nucleus which was bearing down on the world.10 Despite its terrifying appearance, the comet approached in complete silence. The exploding gouts of fire, arcing across the comet’s face, made no sound. “At Paris, as elsewhere, that eventful night, the crowd instinctively maintained silence, spellbound by an indescribable fascination, endeavoring to catch some echo of celestial thunder—but not a sound was heard.”11 The final hours ticked off the clock. The comet darkened as it entered the earth’s shadow, but moments later, “a vast conflagration kindled over the whole extent of the horizon, throwing skyward little violet flames . . . of a sickly, lurid, sepulchral hue.”12 The atmosphere ignited, as predicted. Those people who had failed to take shelter now rushed for safety. The acrid stench of burning sulfur filled the air. Meteorites plunged like Hell’s hail upon the earth’s cities; lightning forks lit the sky in every direction. Then, when all appeared lost, Flammarion engineered his preferred outcome. Nineteenth-century astronomers were divided about whether comet heads were solid or gaseous. In Omega, Flammarion chose the second option. The earth spent four hours in the comet’s gaseous nucleus, but the planet did not experience the shock of a collision with a solid center. The comet scorched the upper atmosphere but did little permanent damage. “The nucleus of the comet had contained within its mass of incandescent gas a certain number of solid uranolites, some of which measured several kilometers in diameter. One of these masses had struck the earth not far from Rome.”13 The international newswires—more concerned with a scoop than accuracy—immediately flashed word that a piece of the comet had crushed the pope and his cardinals. This false report exemplified press coverage of the event. The earth survived its transit through the comet’s head. Nevertheless, it exacted a horrific toll. No city escaped untouched, and many people 99

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died in the trauma produced by the passage. Carbonic oxide poisoning suffocated those who took refuge in poorly ventilated spaces. Heart attacks claimed others. Most startling, perhaps, was the number of people who killed themselves in the days before the actual event. The suicide rate exceeded three to four times normal. Despite the grim death toll, Flammarion concluded the first part of Omega with a cheerful summation of the benefits the disaster produced: “The losses were made good by an apparent increase in human vitality, such as had been observed formerly after destructive wars; the earth continued to revolve in the light of the sun, and humanity to advance toward a still higher destiny.”14 The second half of Omega catapulted its readers thousands of years into the future, where a technologically advanced humanity, in contact with the aliens on Venus and Mars, faced slow extinction. Humans had failed to achieve spaceflight and were trapped on their home world. Slowly the planet’s water evaporated into space or leached deep into the planet’s stony core. As the oceans vanished, the desiccated atmosphere lost its ability to moderate the temperature extremes of sunlight and shadow. Life faded. The last two humans, Omegar and Eva, died together and their souls were reincarnated to live on Jupiter, the next step on the ladder of spiritual evolution. The airless, dead earth continued to revolve around the sun until that great star failed, and the last light winked out in a solar system that had once nurtured humanity. After millions of years spent in the cold darkness, a passing star struck the earth, triggering a fiery rebirth of new planets and fresh life forms. Everything was reforged in universal fire. “For,” wrote Flammarion in the book’s final line, “there can be neither end nor beginning.”15 Omega received enthusiastic notices. One reviewer described it as a work of “thrilling interest . . . the conception of one of the world’s most distinguished astronomers, worked out within the bounds of scientific possibility.”16 Another critic noted: “For scientific statement and sensational effect this characteristic production of French genius is unique, and the reader who reads this marvelous story—and if he begins it he will

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certainly finish it—will have assimilated without effort, a compact store of scientific knowledge.”17 The book did not win universal acclaim. The novel suggested that nearly all humans had made great moral progress during the six hundred years that separated the novel from Flammarion’s own age. The only exception? The press, which remained as unregenerate as ever. In a prescient critique that could have been written decades later about the 1910 comet coverage, Flammarion noted: The daily papers broadcast this alarming news, embellished with sinister comments and numberless interviews in which the most astonishing statements were attributed to scientists. Their only concern was to outdo the ascertained facts and to exaggerate their bearing by more or less fanciful additions. As for that matter, the journals of the world had long since become purely business enterprises. The sole preoccupation of each was to sell every day the largest possible number of copies. They invented false news, travestied with the truth, dishonored men and women, spread scandal, lied without shame, explained the devices of thieves and murderers, published the formula of recently invented explosives, imperiled their own readers and betrayed every class of society for the sole purpose of exciting to the highest pitch the curiosity of the public and of “selling copies.”18 Although journalists might have found this characterization offensive, it certainly demonstrated Flammarion’s understanding of the newspaper business—in his own day and well into the future.

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In 1910—as well as today—the business of capturing and holding a reader’s interest was a newspaper’s highest priority. Sensational stories boosted sales. On Sunday, March 13, the Baltimore Sun ran a half-page story detailing the many ways that Halley’s Comet threatened the earth. An edge-to-edge scare headline asked: “What Would Happen Should Halley’s Comet and the Earth Get Together?” The headline 101

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overlaid a drawing of the US Capitol surrounded by charred ruins with a fiery comet overhead. Another drawing depicted ships marooned on a wreckage-strewn beach, above a caption that stated: “If a comet were to sweep along the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere, so tremendous would be the gale caused by its progress that a vast tornado would be caused.”19 Apparently, claimed the story, France’s greatest astronomers were not certain that “we shall pass through Halley’s comet without feeling it.”20 Naturally, Camille Flammarion was the first authority cited; when Comet Moorhouse had passed the earth in 1908, his colleagues at Juvisy had observed “terrific storms of ‘luminous patches’” flowing down the comet’s tail at the rate of four thousand miles per minute. “We must go through greater ones on May 18,” Flammarion allegedly told a reporter. “What will they resemble? No one knows.”21 Other French astronomers expressed similar apprehensions. Henri-Alexandre Deslandres, the director of the Mouden Observatory, worried that the comet would shower the earth with X-rays. These intense waves of electromagnetic radiation might coalesce atmospheric water, producing a universal flood. Professor Charles Andre, at Lyons, opposed the optimists who suggested that past transits of comet tails proved we had nothing to fear this time. The fact that we flew through the comet of 1861 proved nothing, argued Andre. The earth passed through a narrow point of the tail—a mere three thousand miles across. In May the planet would enter the plume much closer to the comet’s nucleus, plunging into a gaseous sheath that was six hundred thousand miles thick. Abe Moreux, director of the Bourges Observatory, worried about the celestial garbage the comet’s head had swept up during its interstellar passage. What if the nucleus was loaded with meteors, vicious stones that the comet might hurl at the earth’s surface as it went by? In short, claimed the Sun, French scientists were concerned. The data appeared alarming: “On May 1, it is certain, anyhow, that the white-hot monster, with a head as big as 44 earths, will be dashing straight on us at the combined speeds of earth (65,720 miles an hour) and comet (105,400 miles an hour).”22 At that velocity, the slightest course deviation would produce a radical 102

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departure from its projected path. “It has only to hurry its speed— a thing it does quite variously in various returns, to arrive at its point of intersection of the earth’s orbit about May 2, instead of May 30.”23 The result? Impact with the earth. Even if the math was correct, even if the earth and comet’s orbits remained unaltered, each day between May 1 and May 18 brought the earth closer to the comet. “Down it seems to continue dashing on us, boiling and churning from its recent scathing around the sun, tail-front scorching, blasting, like an inferno on a joy ride.”24 “Everyone knows what happens to a comet going around the sun,” continued the article. “It arrives headfirst but a violent gale of light pours forever out of the sun, equal to 12,000 horsepower per square foot. Under its terrific scorching blast the comet’s head boils, throwing vast volumes of gas into the coma and damnable molten lumps into the tail.”25 The awesome power of the sun propels this material into space, like the questing beam of a locomotive headlight on a foggy night. In May, that energy would focus on the earth. From a distance of fourteen million miles, the comet would aim its incredible power at our planet. What would that be like? No one knew for certain. There was, however, good reason to doubt those who believed the earth would remain unaffected. Those scientists who maintained that a comet’s tail was composed of insubstantial gas were likely wrong, wrote the Baltimore Sun. “No theory will be plausible which does not represent the comet, also, throwing out something.”26 The recent passage of Comet Morehouse proved the point. “It was the scene of terrific explosions of an unexpected nature: vast lumps of molten hills were thrown backward into the tail, accompanied by volleys of meteors and stones. Surely it gave out something!”27 And if the possibility of massive stone lumps smashing through the earth’s atmosphere wasn’t terrifying, what about those “luminous patches” that concerned Flammarion? According to the Sun, two of Flammarion’s assistants had photographed bright emanations of light “storming from neck to tail [of Comet Morehouse] at speeds not at all equal to that of light.”28 What were these strange light storms, and what catastrophes might they unleash upon the earth? 103

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No one knew. Perhaps they would do nothing more than trigger a wild light show. Alternatively, “the heavens will seem to be in flames. Or, no, the sky will be a livid yellow, tingling with phosphorescence, amid showers of meteors.”29 If those doomsday scenarios did not excite sufficient nervousness, there was also the possibility of universal floods, and, on the opposite end of the disaster spectrum, intense heat. Would the fiery tail scorch the earth? After leading its readers through several scenarios for cometary Armageddon, the article concluded on a reassuring note: we needed to think in three dimensions. Astronomical calculations projected the movement of the comet through two-dimensional space, simply assuming that the comet traveled in the same plane as the planets in the solar system. If this was incorrect, if there was an error on the z-axis, then the comet’s tail could pass above or below the earth. Were we in the same plane? Camille Flammarion appeared uncertain. “The calculations are not terminated,” he reportedly said when asked this question.30 Here was a glimpse of hope. Perhaps it was still possible to evade the terrors enumerated in the article. Therefore, concluded the unnamed writer, “before digging holes for refuge in the earth we might as well wait for the exact data.”31 In other words, readers should hope for a mathematical error to save them from the many nightmarish possibilities the article proffered. Imagine sitting down to breakfast on a Sunday morning in March, opening your thick paper to page thirteen and finding this terrifying article. It was a superb example of yellow journalism, pseudoscience offered to frighten readers, a collection of horrific—even preposterous— possibilities that ignored the consensus of the international astronomical community. Designed to capture reader attention, the story offered no rebuttals of its frightening possibilities, even those discounted by responsible scientists. Although presented as a “scientific” story and printed in several American newspapers, this article owed more to the overwrought imagination of a newspaper reporter than the scientists it “cited.”

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As March slipped past, astronomers labored to calm the public and counter the disaster-laced narratives appearing in the newspapers. Passage through the comet’s tail represented a unique scientific opportunity. This event, wrote Professor Campbell of the Lick Observatory, “will be one of great human and considerable scientific interest. Inasmuch as a comet’s tail, especially at such a great distance from the head, is extremely attenuated, there is not the slightest chance of deleterious effects upon terrestrial life.”32 There was absolutely nothing to worry about. “Statements to the contrary must be attributed to the ignorance of their authors or to purposes difficult to fathom,” concluded Professor Campbell.33 Was it ignorance or an unfathomable purpose that motivated Edwin Emerson to release a short book near the end of March titled Comet Lore: Halley’s Comet in History and Astronomy? Clearly the latter. Emerson, the author of several historical works, including the popular A History of the Nineteenth Century: Year by Year, released a book designed to stoke the world’s growing uneasiness. Emerson opened his book with a chapter on the comet’s history. After a short discussion of how Edmond Halley had discovered the periodicity of the comet, Emerson listed the disasters associated with each of the comet’s preceding visits. Halley’s Comet, wrote Emerson, had the “most baleful record” of any comet.34 The annals of history offered unimpeachable evidence that this comet unleashed havoc whenever it neared the earth. “Directly after each return of Halley’s Comet there has always followed somewhere within the influence of its rays one or other of those ‘dire things,’—a flood, an earthquake, a hurricane, famine, plague, war, bloodshed, or the sudden death of a ruler. . . . Among the signal events following in the train of this Comet there have been so many bloody massacres and appalling disasters that Halley’s Comet now has the ominous distinction of being the bloodiest of all stars of ill omen.”35 The comet’s last pass, in 1835, proved Emerson’s thesis. The comet produced an outbreak of plague in Egypt; it started the Great New York Fire, an inferno that swept through the city’s business district and caused more than $18 million in damage. Its appearance encouraged Chief 105

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Osceola of the Seminole Indians to wage war in Florida. Texans declared their independence and attacked Mexico, which resulted in the last stand at the Alamo. In South Africa, Zulu warriors launched a surprise attack on the Boers, resulting in the bloody massacre of “41 men, 56 women, 185 children, and 250 Kaffir slaves.”36 War was a common side effect of comets. “Certain metaphysicians,” wrote Emerson, “have held that there is a substance in a Comet, or in its tail, which has a weird effect on a man’s brain, as moonshine is believed to have on some men, making them lunatics.”37 If the moon caused tides, and, in some cases, temporary insanity in humans, then why couldn’t comets exert a similar force? “The close approach of a Comet to the earth affects and disturbs men’s brains, so that men are inwardly stirred with warlike impulses. Hence the great wars almost invariably following the appearance of Comets.”38 After a semi-scientific discussion of theories about the nature of a comet’s head and tail, Emerson turned to a consideration of the dangers that might accompany the comet’s 1910 visit. It was Edmond Halley who had first contemplated the awful prospect of a comet smashing into the earth. According to Emerson, Halley’s calculations demonstrated that the comet had passed within four thousand miles of the earth in 1680. What, wondered Halley, would have happened if the comet had collided with our home planet? “If so large a body with so rapid a motion were to strike the earth,” wrote the English astronomer, “a thing by no means impossible—the shock might reduce this world to its original chaos.”39 So what about this time? Was the earth in danger? “Nobody knows for certain,” wrote Emerson. Nevertheless, there was more than ample reason to be alarmed. Taking a page out of the newspaper playbook, Emerson introduced eminent astronomer Camille Flammarion and repeated the false claims—asphyxiation by laughing gas, ignition of the atmosphere, and cyanogen poisoning—that had become routine newspaper fodder. Despite these potential horrors, Emerson favored a direct comet strike for the end of the earth. He imagined a scenario (which freely plagiarized Flammarion’s Omega) in which astronomers announced the discovery of an inbound comet. The world yawned: comets were no 106

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longer a novelty and the sky watchers frequently discovered new ones. But this was a comet with a difference. As the orbital trajectory became clear, astronomers realized that it was on a collision course with the earth. Telegrams alerted the news agencies; newspapers released the alarming news. Jaded readers refused to panic. “At first the prediction of the Earth’s doom is received with popular incredulity, engendered by years of newspaper misrepresentation. The world’s end has been told too frequently and too frightfully foretold on flamboyant double-page Sunday editions.”40 Ultimately, after a period of growing terror, Halley’s Comet struck the earth. The planet “is reduced to a maelstrom of lava, gas, steam, and planetary debris—mankind is annihilated with merciful swiftness by heat and suffocation. . . . When it is all over, the Earth swims through space, a blackened planetary cinder—desolate and dead.”41 One chance to horrify his readers did not sate Emerson’s apocalyptic thirst. The Bible opens with two accounts of God’s creation of the world (Genesis 1 and 2); Emerson mirrored this literary structure with two accounts of the earth’s destruction. The second of these, provocatively entitled “The End of the Earth,” was excerpted from Camille Flammarion’s Omega. Emerson credited the French astronomer but failed to tell his readers that the passages were drawn from a novel rather than one of Flammarion’s scientific works. And even though his account was little more than a reworking of Omega, Emerson changed Flammarion’s ending: the comet smashes into the planet, killing everyone. Terrified humans meet their doom, “laid low like dumb brutes. . . . The end of all had come.”42 Emerson employed Flammarion to add credibility to his own book. The French astronomer’s reputation lent a scientific veneer to Emerson’s disaster narrative. Readers unfamiliar with Omega might conclude that Flammarion expected an apocalyptic end to the earth. Comet Lore was not concerned with presenting accurate predictions about what might happen when Halley’s Comet arrived in May. Nowhere in the book’s pages did Emerson report the majority opinion that the comet posed no danger to the earth. Emerson linked the periodic visits of comets to terrestrial disasters and implied that the 1910 passage 107

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would destroy the planet. It was sensationalist literature, rushed off the presses and sold inexpensively (25 cents) to exploit the growing unease. Although Comet Lore explored many of the themes and possibilities first aired in the national press, the newspaper reviews were unflattering. “Every point that can be strained to bring to bear the notion that comets have something to do with human life is pressed into service here. . . . The book is a balance between the newspaperman’s interest in a story with new phases and the interest of the man of science who is not yet emancipated from respect for some of the wildest absurdities that have ever afflicted the human mind,” wrote the Buffalo Sunday Morning News.43 The reviewer for the Fresno Morning Republican dismissed the book as “a sort of yellow journal anthology of comet scares . . . got up in the cheapest and most sensational style, evidently to palm off on the ‘Rubes.’ . . . It must have taken a great deal of diligence to dig up so vast a collection of useless information and misinformation.”44 Despite critical disdain, Emerson’s publisher, Schilling Press of New York, produced eight printings of the book in 1910.45 The public snapped up the sensational volume; Emerson had tapped a lucrative market. But did he believe what he wrote? Was the earth truly in jeopardy? Emerson ended Comet Lore with a poem written in Latin. Translated, it read: After this, but not because of this. This is what the ancients believed about many matters Having said it, they set themselves free And saw things rightly As, for instance, the worldly events of any type That accompany returning comets. And so why do you, look to hear these things Which with an agreeable style I have reported— Earthquakes, floods, failed crops, Death-dealing plagues, fires, wars, And the death of great kings? If it is in your heart, Most benevolent reader, To learn our motive, 108

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Come and receive the truth: The world wants to be deceived. After 126 pages, each designed to suggest that comets brought hardship upon humans and that the 1910 visit of Halley’s Comet was likely to kill the planet’s inhabitants, Emerson disavowed what he had written. The Romans had understood that the presence of one event—the appearance of a comet—did not necessarily cause another (wars, civic disturbances, altered weather). Correlation does not prove causation. Emerson knew this but still produced a book that was a sham, a deliberate deception. He concealed his true opinion in a Latin postscript, a language that few of his readers would have been able to translate. Let the gullible masses gobble up the cheaply printed packet of lies. Emerson and his publisher—ticks gorging on the fears of the populace—made a great deal of money, a profit they would spend after the comet slipped harmlessly past the earth in May. The book was a shocking display of cynicism, a violation of the trust that binds author and reader. The world wants to be deceived.

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Chapter Nine

Aetna and the Wheel of Anxiety

And what would happen to the land And how would look the sea, If in the bearded devil’s path Our earth should chance to be? Full hot and high the sea would boil Full red the forest gleam Methought I saw and heard it all In a dyspeptic dream! —Oliver Wendell Holmes Halley’s comet is on its way And greatly is to be feared; Everything ’twill put on the bum, And on all fruit put a beard. —Pittsburgh Post, April 1, 1910

The prediction concerning Halley’s Comet ought to make the Bible a fast seller. —Democrat-Argus (Caruthersville, MO), April 8, 1910

On March 24, 1910, Mount Aetna, Italy’s most active volcano, stirred from its restless slumber. Puffs of smoke blossomed in the faultless Sicilian sky and a series of earthquakes rattled dishes from Catania to Messina. By nightfall, Professor Ricco, a volcanologist of the Mount Aetna Observatory, told reporters that an “eruptive mouth” had opened near Volta, San Giovanni.1 Lava-strained stone split wide, 111

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and fire scoured the mountain’s flank. Heat lightning flared around a growing ash plume; percussive explosions, like repeated thunder strikes or the pounding of an artillery barrage, pummeled the night air. The mountain hurled stones—lapilli—into the sky as a lava flow crawled inexorably down the slope toward the villages of Bolpasso and Nicoloso.2 The blazing mass, twenty feet high and a third of a mile wide, advanced relentlessly, immolating vineyards, peasant shacks, and everything else in its path. Terrified families fled the angry mountain; carts packed with hastily selected possessions clogged the road to Catania. It was the most violent eruption he’d ever seen, Professor Ricco told the reporters. Violent, but not unprecedented.3 Ancient records show that Aetna has erupted more than two hundred times since 1500 BC. A major eruption destroyed farmland in 1879, and in 1908, a series of dyspeptic outbursts produced flows in the central crater. Although the 1910 eruption, which lasted nearly a month, was striking for its violence, it was neither unusual nor unprecedented. The volcano had always been a restless neighbor. The timing frightened many Italians. The January downpours that had filled the Seine moved south with spring; torrential rains brought flooding to Calabria and drenched southern Italy. Unusually wet weather, an eruption of Mount Aetna—was the approaching comet responsible? As visitors gathered in Rome to celebrate Holy Week, Pope Pius X issued a statement. Clearly the natural disasters were a sign of God’s wrath. Italy’s “prevailing religious indifference” had provoked the deity.4 Aetna’s eruption and Calabria’s floods signaled divine displeasure. The pope encouraged Italians to return to the nation’s churches, offer prayers of repentance, and secure an end to these disasters. This strategy proved ineffective. Aetna, after a brief lull, thundered back to life on March 28. Lava flowed through the streets and alleys of San Leo, incinerating homes and businesses. Equally alarming was the sympathetic roar that shook Naples. Five fissures fractured the central crater atop Mount Vesuvius, and the volcano that had buried Pompeii belched a cloud of sulfurous smoke. The eruptions were spreading up the Italian peninsula. 112

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Thirty American tourists barely escaped death on the slopes of Mount Aetna, reported the Winnipeg Tribune. On March 26, the thrill-seekers slipped around police roadblocks and hiked through the devastated landscape to the edge of an active lava flow. As they watched a river of orange magma flow past their feet, a fresh earthquake shook the mountain, unleashing a stream of lava that surged down the slope toward the foolish tourists. “The party fled, shrieking before the wave, which rolled forward with the speed of a breaker on a level beach,” reported the Tribune. “Several of the women stumbled and were dragged forward bodily by their companions. Miraculously, all escaped.”5 The Sicilian farmers who worked on the volcano’s slopes could also run away, but they could not take their homes and lands with them. Aetna’s 1910 eruption was a terrible disaster, causing millions of dollars of damage. The eruption raised fresh questions about the influence of comets. As the mountain smoked and boomed, people continued to wonder if there was a link between the recent string of natural disasters and the presence of two comets in earth’s interstellar neighborhood. If comets possessed the power to alter the weather, why couldn’t they trigger earthquakes and eruptions? French scientists debated the question. Camille Flammarion represented the faction who saw no connection between the two comets and the flurry of natural disasters. It was nothing more than a coincidence, he told reporters, that the comet should arrive at the same time the earth was experiencing unusual conditions. No evidence supported the theory that Halley’s Comet was responsible for Paris’s floods or Aetna’s eruption. Flammarion maintained that the natural disasters and comets were unrelated. If there was a significant flaw in Flammarion’s pronouncements, it was his tendency to qualify his views by speaking in terms of probability. The best scientists remain open to the possibility that their knowledge is incomplete, and even when they consider a position unassailable, they prudently understand that new data may compel them to revise accepted views. Newspaper reporters and readers prefer certainty—a black-or-white statement is better than one hedged in shades of 113

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probabilistic gray. The clash between these two approaches to knowledge leads to occasional confusion. This is evident in the reporting of Flammarion’s reassurances. The Jackson Daily News ran his words under a headline that read “Halley’s Comet Had No Hand in the Disaster: Present Activity of Mt. Aetna Has No Connection.”6 The story opened with the news that Flammarion had denied any link between Aetna and the comet. Flammarion then qualified his declaration: “Still it is always best to make such a statement conditionally,” said the scientist, “and I shall make mine in that manner. Upon every one of the thirty trips of the comet there have been events on earth happening until the thing seems to establish a connection. As for natural causes from the present visit of the comet I am not in a position to make a statement but there have been physical upheavals of a very serious nature. The great Paris flood and the present eruption of Mt. Aetna are two so far, and the comet has not yet attained its distance from the earth.”7 Would this have reassured the average reader? It would have been much clearer if Flammarion had simply denied a connection and left it there. The article’s headline and his oblique comments suggest this conclusion, but the quotes were ambiguous. The story’s lead claimed that he had disavowed a relationship, but his direct quotes never state this explicitly. On the other hand, Flammarion was much clearer in his rejection of apocalyptic views: When we consider that this is the thirtieth journey of the star I cannot reconcile myself to the views of some scientists who predict dire things from the visit. Some have voiced the opinion that the world might end with the nearest approach of the star; others that it [the earth] would fly from its orbit, through the counter attraction of the earth’s gravity and smash our comet; others that noxious gases from the tail will cause a great plague to fall upon us. It is true that historical events are interwoven with the history of the comet, but I reiterate my belief that physical disaster will not overtake the earth on account of the propinquity of Halley’s comet.8 114

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Once again Flammarion repudiated the false positions attributed to him: the comet would not smash into the earth, nor would toxic gases exterminate life. In a just world, editors would have written retractions, and Flammarion would have been cleared of scaremongering. Of course there was little chance that would happen. Only a handful of papers (the Oakland Tribune being the most prominent) published Flammarion’s statement. The French astronomer was more useful as a flamboyant source of apocalyptic predictions than as a stolid, dull scientist. Not every newspaper joined in this fearmongering. Country common sense prevailed in the Yellville, Arkansas, Mountain Echo. Having noted the growing unease around the approaching comet, the paper’s editor urged his readers to reject the prophecies of doom. A man has only to “consider creation to know that there is no danger from Halley’s comet. He has but to meditate upon the fact that this old world has always been and always will be reassured that he has nothing to fear from this visit of the comet. For there is no question about the earth’s having always been, nor that it always will be. . . . It is the height of folly to speculate about the termination of this sphere.”9 Although certainly wrong in the long term—in five billion years scientists expect the sun to turn into a red giant and destroy the earth— the Mountain Echo’s front-porch wisdom was likely to prove correct during the lifetime of its readers. It also is reassuring to see that, despite the media’s effort to portray Flammarion as a prophet of doom, not every reader was buying it. An astute reader of the Tennessean lambasted a story that had appeared in the Sunday edition of his newspaper. “Neither Flammarion, Pickering, nor any other astronomer has predicted that animal life would be destroyed by this comet’s tail. On the contrary, those astronomers say exactly the reverse of that, and hold the opinion that if we pass through the tail, we will not be affected or even notice it except there possibly may be a faint yellowish glow. No harm is expected.”10 Although superstitious ideas about comets were slowly dying, continued the writer, apprehension still remained. “Many people—largely harmless women and children—are really distressed by fear, especially when they are given the names of alleged authorities, which, if correctly 115

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quoted, would give some reason to fear. I am glad to say that the Sunday writer is utterly mistaken; and I say that scientists agree that there is no cause for apprehension.”11 Despite this shrewd analysis, not everyone agreed that apprehension was unwarranted. Volcanic eruptions in South America and Italy increased the particulate count in the earth’s atmosphere. Across the United States, viewers were treated to a “blood moon,” our lunar satellite glowing like a baleful red eye in the night sky. This mysterious color change rattled observers and prompted a variety of theories to explain the lunar apparition. One poet declaimed: Some say it is the comet,   That pales the moon’s clear flight, And takes completely from it,   Its silvery gleam at night. Some say ’tis noxious gases   Commingled with the air, Whose density surpasses   The beams that late were fair.12 Father M. S. Brennan, professor of astronomy at Kenrick Seminary, St. Louis, blamed humidity: the “atmosphere is filled almost to the point of saturation with watery vapor,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.13 This produced a red tint in the sky. People should not be alarmed, however, for as soon as one of the overdue storms blew through Missouri, it would sweep the excess vapor from the air and restore the moon to its normal appearance. Weather prophet Irl Hicks disagreed. It was clear that the moon’s chilling appearance was an early sign of the approaching comet. He told reporters, with “ominous shakings of his head,” that the comet was already influencing the planet. “The atmosphere is densely impregnated with gases and impurities,” claimed Hicks, “and the breaking up will be accompanied by terrific electrical disturbances, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.”14

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Hicks’s comet gas was already affecting humans and animals. In Evansville, Indiana, scores of residents complained of altered sleep patterns. People who normally slept no more than eight hours a night reported an overwhelming drowsiness. Unable to hold their eyes open, men and women were snoozing for fifteen to twenty-four hours at a time. The extended hours in bed didn’t cure their fatigue; they still claimed exhaustion and could barely keep their eyes open. The days did not contain enough hours to satisfy their need for sleep.15 Was Halley’s Comet responsible for this strange sleeping sickness? An editor for Utah’s Ogden Standard offered a theory: “Evansville is in closer touch with the tail of Halley’s Comet than is this part of the country, as the people of Ogden continue to be wide awake, with the exception perhaps of the ‘Kids’ who fell into a state of somnolence following the expending of their excess energy a day last week.”16 The writer suggested marketing this unusual quality: Evansville could promote itself as a spa for insomniacs. “Halley’s comet will be welcomed by countless thousands in this land of nervous wrecks,” continued the editorial, “where insomnia approaches a national affliction. There are many who pray that the influence of the tail of the gaseous visitor shall increase its influence until sleep—deep, refreshing sleep—holds them in its embrace for 15 hours a night.”17 Evansville’s Rip van Winkles failed to impress the editors of the Los Angeles Times. They consigned the story to the growing collection of “yellow journalism” that surrounded the comet. It was shameful, they wrote, to scare people unnecessarily. There must be a logical, scientific explanation for the wave of Indiana drowsiness. “Probably they had been indulging in an indigestible church supper of ice cream and ham sandwiches, and so had evolved gas in the bowels, which causes insomnia. They then ‘blame it on the comet.’”18 It was an ingenious solution, albeit one that failed to address the reported symptoms.

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Comet gas altered more than sleep patterns; some believed it was responsible for biological anomalies. Experienced farmers in Lawton, Oklahoma, were baffled by the birth of a four-legged chicken. 117

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A Mrs. Beetch, who lived on Signal Avenue, reported the birth of the prodigy, a tiny chick that appeared normal in every respect—except for the presence of a second set of legs. “The chicken is in no way abnormal except that it has four legs, and stands and walks on all four like a regular member of the quadruped family,” reported Lawton’s Daily News-Republican.19 Had the comet caused this shocking abnormality, wondered the newspaper? After all, “many awful things have been predicted with the coming of Halley’s comet this year and freaks of all kinds are being reported in all parts of the earth. Malformed persons and animals are being born and curious freaks are making their appearance.”20 In the ancient world, a four-legged chicken would have been considered an unambiguous portent of doom. Was it possible, asked the newspaper, that our ancestors understood the world better than modern humans? Were they right to foresee disasters and destruction when confronted with strange abominations? History proved that catastrophes of every type accompanied the visits of Halley’s Comet, continued the News-Republican, and “following the circumstantial evidence that some great calamity has come with every comet of the past, arguments for the side of ‘evil and war’ have the best of the question.”21 Nothing illustrated that point more clearly than Edwin Emerson’s recent book Comet Lore, which established a clear link between comet visits and earthly horrors. When one considered this overwhelming body of evidence, it seemed unlikely that the earth could escape the coming visit unscathed. Lawton’s four-legged chicken suggested that pernicious comet gases were already infiltrating the earth’s atmosphere and upsetting the natural biological order. Many in Lawton believed “that the comet is the direct cause of the freak four-legged chicken, which has made its appearance here. If the chicken continues to live the superstitious belief will grow stronger.”22 One wonders about the “experienced farmers” who claimed that they had never seen anything like Mrs. Beetch’s four-legged chicken. Polymelia is a genetic condition that occasionally produces extra limbs on poultry. Four-legged chickens are rare, but they certainly weren’t unprecedented or impossible. In fact, a week earlier, the Post-Dispatch reported the birth of 118

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a four-legged chicken in St. Louis, Missouri. One of Andrew Anderson’s Plymouth Rock hens hatched an egg containing a quadrupedal chick. “Anderson hopes the chick will live,” reported the newspaper, “and will be the forerunner of a four-legged progeny.”23 A pair of four-legged chickens, born a week apart, suggested that the genetic condition was not that unusual. On the other hand, it could also point to a growing concentration of comet gas in the atmosphere. Perhaps the abnormal chickens were the canaries in the world’s coal mine, a warning of worse to come.

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On the first day of April, the comet rounded the sun (from the perspective of an observer on this planet) and turned toward the earth. It was 130 million miles away, a distance so great, wrote one reporter, that “if you were tied to a thirteen-inch cannon ball and shot from a fifty-foot gun, it would take you several years to reach Halley’s Comet.”24 But would this formidable distance protect the earth from the comet’s malign influence? Or, as the eruption of Mount Aetna suggested, was the comet already affecting the planet? Spring brought odd weather to the United States, and farmers reported an impact on their crops. The comet was credited with the destruction of the peach crops in New Jersey and Delaware, and “its baleful influence is reaching out for everything that grows out of the ground,” wrote the Pittsburgh Daily Post.25 The comet shed clouds of nitrogen as it approached. This noxious gas, possessing an uncanny sense of direction, headed straight for the fruit orchards. Nitrogen inhibited fruit growth and resulted in “peaches that will not be any larger than acorns and about as tasteless.”26 Not only did the comet’s nitrogen stunt development, but it also produced “whiskers” on the fruit, an unsightly growth that the farmers would need to shave before selling their crop. “Some 70 years ago Halley and his comet visited the earth and peaches turned as blue as indigo and had a fuzz on as long as a chick’s pin feathers. That was known as the year of the whiskered peaches,” noted the Post.27 Midwestern farmers blamed the comet for abnormally warm weather. In Rushville, Indiana, temperatures reached highs not normally 119

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seen until August. A year earlier, snow showers had been gilding the town, which was the normal meteorological pattern for early April. “An explanation being offered which gives a mortal a shuddering sensation along the spine is that Halley’s comet has something to do with the warm weather,” wrote the Rushville Republican.28 On one evening, clouds of “double darkness” covered Weldon, North Carolina. As the afternoon light faltered, the town’s more superstitious residents postulated that the earth had run into the comet’s tail and the time of judgment was at hand. The old hands who clustered on the porch of the general store couldn’t remember a day when the clouds had ever been so dark; workers lit the streetlights early to dispel the gloom. Then, just before the town’s residents despaired, the clouds rolled east and daylight returned to Weldon.29 The town’s reaction was a little ridiculous, wrote the Roanoke News. Everybody knew that Halley’s Comet, which “is now coming at a great rush” according to the latest predictions “will strike the earth about May 18th, yet this need not alarm anyone. The only effect it will have will be to cause a meteor display, perhaps, such as was seen in 1833. . . . Let not your hearts be worried,” advised the paper. “Comets may come, and comets may go, but this old world will roll on still.”30

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The advancing spring brought additional signs that the comet was influencing the earth. As Halley’s Comet brightened in the morning sky, observers continued to notice weather disruptions and extreme manifestations of meteorological upheaval that were surely due to the comet. Extreme temperature swings rocked the Midwest. One morning in Chicago, for example, the temperature climbed twenty degrees Fahrenheit between the hours of six and eleven. The city’s thermometers then reversed and dropped thirty degrees before the lunch hour. These rapid fluctuations made it difficult to select clothes for the day. The strange temperature swings were mirrored in the climatic variation. The normal Midwestern transition from winter cold to the warmer temperatures of spring reversed. March’s unseasonably warm tempera120

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tures yielded to a mid-April cold snap. An arctic storm swept south and buried America’s breadbasket. From the Canadian border to Texas, snow destroyed the crops, which, owing to the benign conditions of the previous month, were further along in the growth cycle than normal. Immature fruit froze in place, producing millions of dollars of losses for America’s farmers. The destruction raised the specter of food shortages later in the year. “I cannot say whether or not the comet is responsible for the alarming and unexpected cold spell—probably not,” opined Professor Cox of the California Weather Bureau, “but seldom have I witnessed such a sudden change from the real spring temperature to the weather of today.”31 Tornadoes leveled towns and farms in the southern states. Cyclones shredded homes in Merrigold and Jonestown, Mississippi. Barns were splintered, the roofs of others were peeled off and tossed aside. Violent downpours soaked Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, with some towns reporting five to six inches of precipitation in a single day. The torrential rainfall filled streams, overran banks, and spread floodwater across sodden fields. Angry rivers ripped bridges from their foundations—both wooden and steel—making the roads impassable. Cows, horses, chickens, and pigs were drowned or “beaten to death by hail.”32 A thunderstorm savaged Dunkirk, New York. Lightning lit up the town, and thunder shook the air like a naval bombardment. Dunkirk’s older citizens declared the storm unprecedented: there had never been anything like it in the town’s communal memory. “Local astronomers are of the opinion that the Halley Comet had much to do with the unusual phenomenon,” wrote the Buffalo Evening News.33 Meanwhile, California baked under cloudless skies, experiencing a relentless heat wave that was more typical of August than April. Scientists were divided over the cause of this unusual weather. Although most continued to deny a link between the comet and the strange meteorological conditions, others were less certain. Unidentified scientists at the “Hydrographic Office” claimed that Halley’s Comet was influencing the earth’s weather patterns. After careful examination of records from past cometary passes, these experts detected a correlation between unusual weather and the proximity of a comet. 121

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It made sense, claimed the Buffalo Sunday Morning News. Scientists had already “proven” that the orbits of earth’s solar system neighbors influenced the planet’s weather: “By prolonged study of the relations of other planets to ours, the general sort of atmospheric disturbances that may be expected at any time of any year is predicted with accuracy. This is because the regular stars and planets approach and recede with an eternal rhythm.”34 Halley’s Comet, according to the Hydrographic Office, disrupted the stable, predictable pattern of weather; the comet’s presence altered the status quo. “The truth of this has already been borne in upon us,” noted the experts, “by the torrential rains of this section of the country, and the blighted fruit and grain crops of the middle West.”35 The disturbances to the nation’s weather were expected to peak on May 18 when the comet was closest to the planet and the earth passed through the tail. It is not clear what scholarly credentials these unidentified scientists possessed to support their pronouncements on astronomical and meteorological matters. The US Hydrographic Office, an agency tasked with preparing accurate charts of rivers and oceans, was not the organization one normally consulted for expertise in meteorology or astronomy. Nevertheless, the story suggests a growing conviction that the comet was upsetting the natural flow of weather. Moreover, if the comet exerted such a malign influence while still millions of miles away, how much worse would the weather become when it drew closer?

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The Hydrographic Office’s statement failed to surprise Reverend Irl Hicks. It was about time scientists embraced the ideas he had long preached. Nor was the unusual weather unexpected. Hicks claimed to have seen it coming six months earlier and had issued warnings in his 1910 almanac. Early May, wrote Hicks, was governed by the moon, which stood on the celestial equator on May 6, before it slipped to the “perigree” on the 8th, and dropped into an “eclipse node” on the 9th. When this movement was coupled to the fact that the planet had entered a “Mercury period,” it became clear that “this promises to be a very decided and dangerous 122

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period. Storms of tornadic character are more than probable.”36 Hicks’s monthly magazine, Word and Works, updated the almanac’s forecast. In an article entitled “The Comet at the Crisis,” Hicks detailed the range of possibilities facing humanity during the May visit.37 Halley’s Comet was already exerting a powerful influence on the planet. “The phenomenally warm weather through March, the convulsions on the sun, with volcanic violence, earthquakes and abnormal auroral lights,” wrote Hicks, “beyond question are largely the results of Halley’s Comet in its perihelion flight around the suburbs of the sun. Whatever other results may follow from this close visit of the great celestial wonder, we do not hesitate to declare, will not be accidents.”38 The erratic weather was a clear sign that an unusual force was at work, and logic suggested that the comet was the disruptive element. Although his almanac was largely secular, Hicks remained an ordained minister of the Gospel. Therefore, at the conclusion of his spring ruminations about the comet’s influence, he decided that a short sermon was appropriate. The comet, asserted Hicks, was a tool in God’s hands, sent to grab humanity’s attention and direct it back to the creator. “Whatever men may say, we firmly believe that God intends to arrest the attention and thoughts of men by sending such marvelous wonders alongside our little world, and in order to do it, if need be, He will cause the comet to blight the sun and shake the earth. When vain man flatters himself that he has succeeded in eliminating God from the universe— when the stayed order of nature has crystallized the minds of men into scientific unbelief and blindness, God can and does call forth comets, and whatever other wonderful and alarming agencies He pleases out of the deep, silent, eternal heavens.”39 Hicks offered a medieval interpretation of the comet’s advent. The man of pseudoscience who had devoted so much time and energy to tracking the movement of the celestial bodies and correlating them with earth’s weather patterns, abruptly regressed a thousand years and declared the comet a divine harbinger, a messenger in God’s hand. “It is not the work of ‘superstition,’” wrote Hicks, “to look for the hand of God in the comet, but it is the part of holy reverence and faith to learn the lesson He would teach—the stupendous fact that a Divinity 123

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presides over all things in the earth and heavens.”40 People of faith should remember that no matter what happened when the comet made its close pass, God was in control, and he willed the outcome. “His people can with serenity and calmness look upon any exhibition of His power, or enter into the mysteries of any shadow He may throw upon the world.”41

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Chapter Ten

Apocalypse Now

Cometes signifie corruption of the ayre. They are signs of earthquakes, of warres, of the changying of kyngdoms, great dearth of food, yea a common death of man and beast from pestilence. —Leonard Digges, A General Prognostication Irl Hicks was not the only preacher to regard the comet as a manifestation of God’s power. Although Edmond Halley had debunked the idea that comets were God’s emissaries dispatched to warn the earth of coming doom, the notion that this regularly orbiting comet had a supernatural significance proved remarkably resilient. George Fisher, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, searched the scriptures and determined that the comet was a harbinger of doom, a herald of the end times. In 1861, wrote Fisher, the earth passed through the tail of Tebbut’s Comet, and a French astronomer named Emmanuel Liais recorded his observations of the event. The sky turned the color of blood at midday. “Then there was a rapid plunge into a lurid phosphorescent yellow and almost immediately the sky darkened into a coppery green, as if a tornado was approaching.”1 The earth spent only a few minutes in the tail of Tebbut’s Comet, continued Fisher. Since it would take longer for the earth to pass through Halley’s thicker tail, no one should be surprised if the effect proved more dramatic than what Liais had observed. In fact, observers might witness what had been predicted in holy scripture: “I will show wonders in the 125

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heavens and the earth, blood, and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”2 “If this is correct,” wrote Fisher, “and I regard it so—it would be nothing strange if the great Creator who set Halley’s comet in motion times its movements so as to produce the ‘fearful sights’ mentioned above, and right on time.” God had set the comet in motion at the moment of creation, timing its orbit so that, like a celestial alarm clock, it would begin ringing just before the apocalypse, scheduled for May 18. Although bad news for many, the faithful should take heart. “Nothing better could happen than to have the kingdom of God established on earth among men, and that the Golden Age come wherein men will love one another like brothers and the law of the whole earth will be love.”3 So the comet’s arrival was good news. The end was nigh; Halley’s carried eternal comfort to God’s people in its gaseous tail. “It is not impossible, therefore,” concluded Fisher, “that Halley’s comet may be one of God’s messages to give notice of the glorious era soon to come. Bible students will watch the phenomena with double interest.”4

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The blood red moon continued to excite imaginations. Although Father Brennan and Irl Hicks offered scientific explanations for the phenomenon, R. O. Alexander, a biblical scholar from Charlotte, North Carolina, regarded it as a fulfillment of prophecy. “To begin at the beginning,” said Alexander, when interviewed by a Charlotte News reporter, “you remember that about two thousand years ago Jesus Christ left this world and went back to Heaven.”5 Before his departure, Christ offered a number of clear signs that would precede his triumphant return. “He says in the 30th verse and 2nd chapter of Joel that he will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. Now one of the wonders in the heavens that is due here soon is Halley’s comet, and it distinctly states that he will show wonders in the heavens and undoubtedly the so-called comet which has a tail five million miles long, and a head of one hundred ninety-three thousand miles, is a wonder.”6 126

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The comet was a certain sign, reinforced by heavenly portents. “The 31st verse [of Joel] says that the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and terrible day of the Lord comes,” continued Alexander. “For the last two weeks the sun has been turned into darkness. That is to say, it has not been giving its full light. The moon has been turned into blood. If you have noticed the moon in the last two weeks, you will see the word of God thoroughly carried out and fulfilled.”7 These manifestations practically interpreted themselves: the return of the Lord was at hand. Mr. Alexander reckoned that the planet had arrived at the moment when the Book of Revelation’s third seal would be broken.8 Rivers would run dry and famine would sweep the country—punishment for the wickedness of the land’s inhabitants. The devil was about to be chained, ushering in the return of Christ and a rule of peace and prosperity. Did readers require further confirmation? Look no further than the rapid advance of technology, argued Alexander. “I believe that the automobiles and the flying machines and the telephones and the electrical developments are rapidly coming to a high state of utilization, [and] that after the devil is chained and locked up in hell, under the reign of Jesus Christ, all of these things that we have in their infancy, such as the automobile, the flying machine, electricity, telephone, will be used in their highest state, [although] the powers of darkness are now hindering us in carrying them forward.”9 It was an odd interpretation. The comet foreshadowed a future world in which emerging technologies would be perfected under the beneficent rule of Jesus. The comet was a sign of peaceful transition, rather than a destructive harbinger of the end. Satan would be chained, clearing a path for humans to develop cell phones and Boeing 747s without his maleficent distraction. Advanced technology played a very different role in R. E. L. Evans’s apocalyptic vision. Evans, a student of biblical prophecy from Thompson, Georgia, identified Halley’s Comet as the poisonous star Wormwood mentioned in Revelation 8:10–11: “The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of 127

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the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many died from the water, because it was made bitter.” This text, said Evans, clearly described a comet strike, and the most obvious candidate for this horrible role was Halley’s Comet. “The majority of the Christian world,” he wrote, “believes in the Bible, and if they do, then they must believe all of it, or none, and the Bible says distinctly that when the third angel blows his trumpet, Wormwood (Halley’s Comet) will destroy one-third of what is on the earth.”10 There was some good news: Evans did not believe that this apocalyptic devastation was scheduled for the 1910 pass. Several signs were missing: “The South Pole is yet to be discovered. The air is to be full of airships; the Eastern war [has] to take place; the Bible [must] be known in all parts of the world; electricity [must] be more utilized.”11 Until these events and the accompanying technological developments unfolded, God would delay Armageddon. The world was safe—for the moment. Revelation’s prophecies clearly stipulated the sequence of events, although Evans did not explain which text pointed to the discovery of the South Pole, electricity, or fleets of airships sailing the skies. “Truly we can be thankful for this delay of the consummation of all things,” wrote the editor of the Manning Times of South Carolina, “but we can rest with greater confidence upon the assurance of the scientists, that already our earth has more than once passed through the tail of Halley’s comet without receiving the slightest harm.”12 Scientific assurance? That wasn’t going to travel far in a world battered by the twin winds of superstition and apocalyptic prophecy. Nor did Christians need the “wisdom” of scientists. In fact, wrote a reader13 in Sacramento, California, the country would be better off if newspapers quit printing stories that suggested the comet was harmless. “Why make it so clear that the comet’s coming does not presage the end of the world? Don’t you know that there are lots of old, time-hardened sinners out in this neck of the woods, who never would get down upon their knees and beg the Almighty’s forgiveness, until the approach of Halley’s comet was heralded as a possible coming of the end?”14 Terror was motivational. The Sacramento moralist expressed delight with the growing anxiety. “It does me good to see an old reprobate who hasn’t done anything but lie and swindle all of his life, rush 128

Apocalypse Now

down to the mourner’s bench and beg for the saving of his soul that he never admitted having before the comet was sighted.” Debtors were repaying loans and church membership was swelling. “It certainly isn’t going to hurt some of the people in Sacramento to think that Halley’s comet is going to knock us into smithereens. Many need a stimulant of that kind for their religious and moral welfare.”15

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The comet, newspapers claimed, was certainly having that effect in the south. A black minister in Abbeville, Louisiana, reported unprecedented attendance at services: “the colored people are highly wrought up over the approach of Halley’s comet.”16 Packed churches were forced to turn people away—the buildings didn’t have enough room. “The general belief seems to be that there will be a head-on collision [with the comet], and that the earth ‘will come to an end.’ The excitement almost approaches a panic with a large number. Not only the colored people, but many of the white people are greatly excited over the approach of the comet.”17 Many Louisiana residents, believing that their state stood in the comet’s crosshairs, had already sold their furniture and were preparing to flee the impact zone. The idea that African Americans were more susceptible to comet madness than their sensible white neighbors was frequently expressed in the racist newspapers of 1910. African Americans, especially those who lived in the southern states, were just as gullible, superstitious, and unsophisticated as foreigners and immigrants. They were all likely to lose their wits as the comet approached. Stories arriving from eastern Europe reinforced this point. For weeks, claimed American newspapers, the residents of Nagy-Szt-Miklos, a small village in Hungary’s Theiss valley, had worried that the comet was going to smash the globe into atoms. When a nighttime fire erupted in a neighboring village, those fears coalesced into terror. The village watchman, seeing the sky glowing in the distance, woke his neighbors by blowing his horn and shouting, “The last day has come.”18 Terrified residents rushed into the streets. “Men trembled, women screamed and the children cried.” Since their time was short, the peasants 129

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decided to enjoy an Epicurean feast. They built a large bonfire in front of the church and then, with food and drink carried from their homes, the villagers settled down for a final feast. “Everyone joined in a hurried orgy while hasty prayers were made between bites for the salvation of their souls.”19 Although an unusual manifestation of comet madness, it wasn’t the deadliest. Hungary also claimed the first comet-related death. In mid-March, newspapers reported that Adam Toma, a wealthy landowner of the district of Szozona, slit his throat. In a note left beside his body, Toma claimed that it was better to die by his own hand than suffocate in the comet’s killing gases. Toma was not the first person in history to take his life when faced with a comet. Ambroise Paré, the great sixteenth-century physician, noted a rash of deaths when the Comet of 1528 passed the earth. “This comet was so horrible,” he wrote, “so frightful, and it produced such great terror among the common people, that many died of fear and many others fell sick.”20 Edwin Emerson offered several examples of suicides in his Comet Lore. “There has often,” he wrote, “been a direct connection between the feelings produced in the human soul by the appearance of a Comet and the human deeds of violence or the human epidemics and excessive mortality following the widespread terror produced by Comets.”21 Several famous men, Emerson claimed, had ended their lives under a comet’s influence. Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general who almost conquered the Romans in the Second Punic War, committed suicide when confronted with a comet. So did the Hellenistic king of Pontus, Mithridates VI Eupator, also defeated by the Romans.22 Emerson’s history lesson was no more reliable than any other part of his book. Hannibal, after losing the Battle of Zama against Scipio Africanus in 202 BC, traveled east and settled under the protection of King Prusias of Bithynia. When the Romans demanded the extradition of their old nemesis, Hannibal committed suicide. Ancient accounts of his death fail to mention a comet. Likewise, Mithridates VI. Ancient Chinese and Roman sources suggest that a comet appeared in the heavens in the year 135 BC, two 130

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years before Mithridates’s birth, and a second comet hung in the skies in 119 BC when he began to rule Pontus.23 Although Mithridates was one of Rome’s most formidable enemies, he was worn down and defeated. Rather than fall into the hands of Pompey the Great, Mithridates took poison. When his dose failed to kill him, he appealed to his bodyguard, Bituitus, to finish the job. Again, as with Hannibal, the ancient historians mentioned no comet, and clearly the suicides were prompted by secular, rather than cometary, motivations. Despite these historical objections, Emerson argued that comets unlocked primordial fears and loosened the human instinct for selfpreservation. More suicides were inevitable as the comet approached. America’s first comet suicide originated in the Pacific Northwest. Ruby Woolfield, a troubled young mother who lived in the Naches River Valley, north of Yakima, Washington, succumbed to comet madness and took her own life. The Woolfields occupied a small cabin near the river and supported themselves by selling the vegetables they grew in a small truck garden. Late in the morning of April 4, Ruby bathed her three-month-old baby, placed it gently in a crib, and sang a lullaby to ease it to sleep. She left the child with her husband. She needed a walk, she told him. “That river water sure would feel nice.” Two hours later, when she hadn’t returned, her husband grew worried. When he went to check the mail, he saw her standing on the riverbank a half mile away. He started toward the spot, but she vanished before he could cover the distance. Along the shore of the fast-moving stream flooded with spring runoff, he discovered an ominous message scraped into the hard-packed sand at water’s edge: “Mrs. Ruby Woolfield, April 4, 1910, has gone to her rest.”24 Mr. Woolfield called his neighbors and sent for the sheriff. A search party dragged the eddy that swirled downstream from her point of entry, but no body was recovered. According to her neighbors, Ruby was “a simple minded woman and it is believed that her mind had become deranged slightly because of worry over the end of the world which she believed was drawing near with the approach of Halley’s comet.”25 There was little doubt, reported the searchers, that the unhappy woman, terrified by the possibility of asphyxiation or a fiery comet death, had 131

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chosen to avoid that horror by submitting to the icy, fast-flowing current of the Naches River.

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The suicide of Hungarian landowner Adam Toma disturbed Camille Flammarion. How could anyone be so badly informed that they would kill themselves to avoid an imaginary danger? He took up his pen to try, once again, to stem the growing anxiety. The resulting article was an odd entry in his oeuvre. After expressing grief over the tragic suicide and reiterating his claim that the comet posed no hazard to humanity, Flammarion explored a recent suggestion from Harvard astronomer William Pickering, who believed that the comet might lose its tail before it crossed the earth’s orbit. Evidently, during the 1835 visit, Halley’s Comet had shed its tail as it reached perihelion. As the comet circled the sun and bore down on the earth, it had the appearance of “a round nebulosity, without an appendage.”26 The comet’s tail did not reappear until after the nucleus passed the orbit of Mars. It is possible, continued Flammarion, that the same thing could happen again. If the comet lost its tail, then there would be no danger to the earth. On the other hand, Professor Barnard’s measurements suggested the tail had grown much longer than what had been observed in the 1835 pass. By February 10, a plume eight million kilometers long trailed the nucleus. This suggested that the tail would remain intact and that the earth would pass through it. Neither case was grounds for panic, reiterated Flammarion. The earth had passed through comet tails before with hardly anyone being aware of it. Often the professional astronomers missed the event. There was nothing to worry about and no need to follow the lead of the Hungarian farmer and take one’s life. The earth was about to witness an astronomical event that offered a fabulous opportunity to add to human knowledge about these mysterious objects: what hid in the center of the head? Would the comet shed its tail again? Flammarion’s concluding sentence was, as often the case in the Frenchman’s articles, odd. “He who lives will see.”27 What did this ambiguous line mean? Perhaps it was a reference to Adam Toma, whose 132

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foolish behavior ensured that he would not live to see the marvels Flammarion described. On the other hand, it could also mean that anyone who survived the passage would have the answers. It was a disquieting, ill-chosen conclusion to an otherwise reassuring article.

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Halley’s Comet had yet to embrace its role of “terrifying object.” Early April brought news that the comet appeared to be struggling—maybe its own doom was at hand. Telescope owners expressed disappointment in the comet’s early appearance. An unnamed professor at Gonzaga University was underwhelmed. “This is but another illustration of the fact,” wrote Washington’s Spokesman Review, “that what was thought wonderful 75 years ago isn’t worth noticing in these days of aeroplanes and barefoot dancing.”28 Why was the comet, whose curved tail once blazed like an Islamic scimitar across the evening skies, so subdued? Professor Edward Barnard of the Yerkes Observatory had a theory: the comet was disintegrating. “The comet may surprise us by unexpected developments in the next two weeks,” claimed the astronomer. “The observations which have been made up to date show that it is diminishing in substance and luminosity. It probably was a great comet when it shone down on the boats of William the Conqueror as they crossed the English Channel, but since then it has been losing power.”29 The sun, continued Professor Barnard, eroded the comet’s tail, causing it to lose mass and altering its appearance. Ultimately, all of the gaseous material would be forced out of the comet’s head, and only a collection of dense meteors would remain. “These meteors,” said the professor, “are supposed to be the solid nucleus of the comet. Some persons would seem to think that nothing would happen if the nucleus of the comet struck the earth. I am of the opinion that a good deal would happen if a body of meteors as hard as iron should collide with this planet.”30 Fortunately, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, concluded Barnard; Halley’s nucleus would miss the planet by millions of miles. Indiana astronomer Willis Barnes disagreed with Professor Barnard’s bleak prognosis. The former state senator and “expert on double stars” 133

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expected that Halley’s Comet would fool Barnard and the rest of the scientists. The comet, he opined, was going to be much brighter than the scientific community expected. In just a matter of days, earth’s residents would be treated to a fabulous sight, the great comet blazing in the east in the minutes before sunrise. In fact, argued Barnes, the comet was gaining strength. Although many astronomers embraced the wasting comet model, they failed to consider what happened during the comet’s long travels through the dark regions of the outer solar system. The comet acted like an interstellar vacuum cleaner, its gravity sucking up space debris: “Meteors and nebulous bodies,” said Barnes, “are constantly passing over the orbit of the comet, like fishes swimming in the sea.”31 If the comet successfully netted fresh material as it passed through these rich swarms, then it would burn brightly. The luminosity of the comet depended on how much stardust it had hoovered up during its seventy-five-year absence.

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The train station in Tucson, Arizona, was becoming a hub for traveling apocalyptic prophets. Edward Trevis, of El Paso, Texas, had passed through the station in January on his way to communicate God’s displeasure to the residents of Los Angeles. In mid-April, a month before the comet arrived, another mystical messenger appeared briefly on the platform of the Southern Pacific Station. A flowing blue robe and white silk turban separated the Middle Eastern man from his fellow passengers. His long hair and beard were coiled “in tight little curls like the pictures seen on the bas-relief of Assyrian sculpture,” wrote the Arizona Daily Star.32 Thick oil stiffened his hair; his eyes were two different colors: one “black as midnight and the other was a steely blue.” He possessed, wrote the newspaper, “a distinctive appearance quite apart from his peculiar garb and cryptic utterances.”33 At first the mysterious stranger refused to speak to the Daily Star’s reporter. He maintained a dignified imperturbability, remaining silent until a Turkish rug merchant passed. When the surprised Turk stuttered a “Salaam” in greeting, the stranger dipped his head and replied “Salaama134

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likum,” which, setting aside the Arizona paper’s spelling, means “Peace be to you.” This cordial exchange loosened the stranger’s tongue. Joined by the rug merchant—the Tucson train station being a veritable oriental bazaar—the man began to answer the reporter’s questions. He was an astrologer, a direct descendant of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. His ancient ancestor had besieged Jerusalem and subdued Hezekiah, the king of Judah. After Hezekiah resumed the payment of his annual tribute to the Assyrians, Sennacherib returned to his capital city of Nineveh, taking with him a tapestry that depicted the passage of Halley’s Comet across the sky. The information encoded in the tapestry, claimed the mysterious visitor, underpinned the later calculations of Melchoir and his two companions—the magi from the east who followed the star to Bethlehem. “Yes,” asserted the Assyrian mystic, Halley’s Comet was “the star of Bethlehem. The date you have for the birth of Christ is two years wrong, for he was born two years earlier.”34 Seventy-five years later, with men who had witnessed Christ’s crucifixion still living, the comet returned, timed to presage the Roman suppression of the First Jewish Revolt (AD 66–70). Rather than serving as the peaceful herald of Christ’s birth, “this time Jerusalem was destroyed and crosses were planted around until it looked like a gigantic grove with human fruit of dying men, and the seven-pronged golden candlestick was carried away by Titus to Rome.”35 Ever since that horrific event, the appearance of the comet had signaled disaster for humanity. The sage then ticked off the stock examples that had become commonplace in newspaper stories, including the Norman invasion of England and the Turkish march to Vienna in 1456. Halley’s Comet brought doom in 1910. It was, insisted the prophet, the star spoken of in the Book of Revelation. It was the celestial weapon mentioned in Christ’s famous aphorism: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”36 The returning comet signaled the end of this age. Already the comet was altering the earth’s climate: the sun the previous summer had been the hottest on record; the winter’s chill the coldest ever. Volcanoes spewed lava, while earthquakes rattled the land. Wars, and rumors of wars, threatened to unravel civilization’s fabric. 135

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Yes, repeated Sennacherib’s descendant, the end is at hand. Even now the comet swept toward the earth, “flaming tail first, burning red and angry. At sundown on May 19 the air will become filled with flying sparks and falling stars, and just over the western horizon everybody can see the comet blazing and coruscating, and men and women will begin to pray and weep and then at midnight there will be an awful cry like that which arose in Egypt, and all the wicked will fall back dead and their souls will stream away to be purified in the red flame of the visitor in the heavens that moves from east to west, and will leave the earth holy and purified.”37 Having relayed this horrific prophecy, made even more frightening by the length of his concluding sentence, the mysterious sage rose and strode toward the train that would carry him east, the next leg of his trip to Jerusalem, where he intended to watch the end of the earth on May 19. Tell me your name, begged the reporter, trailing the prophet. “I am the descendant of Sennacherib, son of Abouahab, son of Mechinadib, son of Melchoir, who saw the moving star first of all. “I am Reetsmub.” With this final declaration, the magus climbed into his carriage and departed.

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Although a skeptical reader might find much to question in this odd story—how likely was it that a reporter just happened to be waiting at a train station at the exact moment an Assyrian prophet and a Turkish rug merchant were passing through Tucson?—the Arizona Daily Star did offer the account as factual. It appeared on page two of the newspaper’s Thursday edition beneath an article about Theodore Roosevelt visiting the Victor Emmanuel Monument in Rome. Discerning readers might consider this a work of fiction or another example of yellow journalism, but what about the less sophisticated consumer? Would this dubious account have terrified any of the Daily Star’s nervous subscribers?

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Chapter Eleven

The Death of Kings

When beggars die, there are no comets seen The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. —William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act 2, scene 2 As Shakespeare hinted, Romans and other prescientific societies linked the appearance of comets to the death of rulers. Edwin Emerson’s Comet Lore offered several examples of kings whose reigns ended when a comet hove into view. From Attila the Hun to Louis the Debonair, monarchs fell with Halley’s Comet burning in the sky. This raised a natural question: would the 1910 visit of Halley’s Comet leave heads of state untouched? Or was there some basis for its reputation as a king slayer? Mark Twain was not, strictly speaking, royalty, although newspapers often dubbed him the “king of humor.”1 The winter had treated Twain unkindly. On Christmas Eve morning 1909, a maid entered one of the bathrooms in his Redding, Connecticut, estate and found Twain’s youngest daughter, Jean Clemens, drowned in the bathtub. Jean had struggled with epileptic seizures for most of her life, although recent years had brought improvement. “She had very few convulsions in the past two years, and those she had were not violent,” Twain told reporters. “Her maid,” Twain continued, “who has served us 28 years, was always with her when she went to New York on shopping excursions and such things.” When Jean failed to appear for breakfast, the servant 137

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searched the house. “She found her in the bathtub, drowned. It means that she had a convulsion and could not get out.”2 The accident devastated Twain, a man who had already buried two children and his wife. The pain in his chest, long a familiar companion, intensified. His doctors prescribed a period of convalescence. Twain decided to sail to Bermuda in search of a warm, healing climate. As he departed, two weeks after Jean’s death, Twain assured his fans that he only had a bad case of “indigestion, and that is not the sort of ailment that causes people to die.”3 Over the next three months, the stories appearing in the national press suggested that Twain was recovering. The Los Angeles Times reported that he had shown enough strength one evening to appear in the smoking room of one of Bermuda’s clubs and offer sage counsel to a small audience. “Experience,” pontificated Twain, “makes us wise, but it also makes us hard.” An example: there was once a seasoned old man who sat down in a busy restaurant. Surveying the tables around him, he spied a well-dressed young man who had not yet been served his dinner. The old sharp summoned the waiter and asked, “How long has that gentleman been here?” “About twelve minutes, sir,” replied the waiter. “What’s his order?” “Porterhouse [steak] and French fries, sir.” The old man slipped the waiter a quarter and whispered, “I’m in a hurry. Put on another porterhouse and bring me his.”4 Los Angeles readers must have treasured this fresh sally from the dean of wit. Surely the master was on the mend and could be expected to provide many more hours of entertainment. Those hopes were soon disappointed. On April 15, newspapers broke the sad news that the tropical sojourn had failed to restore the writer. When Albert Bigelow Paine, who was helping the humorist compose his autobiography, arrived on the island, he was shocked by Twain’s deterioration. Paine attributed the sudden decline to the heat and oppressive humidity. He argued that Twain would fare better if he returned north to the temperate Connecticut climate. Twain’s attempt to restore his health in Bermuda was just another example of medical charlatanry, wrote the Los Angeles Times. It was pure 138

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foolishness to exchange one climate for another while maintaining the bad habits that caused your medical problems. “Doctors,” wrote the editors of the Times, “are in the habit of sending their wealthy patients to a ‘mild climate’ when they don’t know what else to do with them. The only advantage of a mild climate is that it permits elderly people and sick people to be in the open air with more comfort.”5 Albert Bigelow Paine convinced Twain to leave Bermuda. He booked passage on the Oceana, which was about to sail for New York. Fearing that a ride on the crowded ship’s tender might stress the author, Paine chartered a tugboat to ferry the writer to the waiting ship. Sailors helped Twain aboard the Oceana, and he immediately retreated to his stateroom. The other passengers did not see the normally gregarious humorist for the duration of the trip. He remained sequestered in his cabin. An early spring storm caught the Oceana at sea, and for the first time in his voyages, Twain succumbed to seasickness, magnifying his discomfort. Twain was spent by the time the Oceana docked in New York. Paine had wired their arrival time to Twain’s personal physician, Dr. Edward Quintard. The heart specialist met the ship. Quintard had treated the humorist for years: “since I was knee high to him.”6 Twain was too weak to walk off the ship with the other passengers; he remained in his cabin as the ship emptied. Hours later sailors bundled Twain into a bosun’s chair and carried him down the gangplank. Flashbulbs popped like summer fireworks as his bearers transferred him into a waiting ambulance. “I am not so strong as I was when you snapped before,”7 Twain remarked. His party drove to New York’s Grand Central Station, where he was placed aboard a train for Connecticut. As he waited, one of the watching reporters asked him how he was feeling. Twain replied in a nearly inaudible voice, “Pretty tough, isn’t it?” Dr. Quintard issued a statement to the newsmen. “I think Mr. Clemens about a week or so ago had a heart attack much more serious than the preceding one. He seems much easier just now, than he has been for some time. As everyone knows, angina pectoris is a dangerous affliction of the heart. I can say that he looks better than I expected to find him.”8 Porters helped Twain aboard the Pittsfield Express, which carried him to Redding, Connecticut. His secretary and butler met the train and 139

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eased him into a waiting automobile. Once again Twain was too frail to walk unassisted. “When he gets home, we will make a thorough examination of his heart,” stated Dr. Quintard.9 The country waited for news. Newspapers cleared space on their front pages for updates about Twain’s condition. The initial reports were promising. Dr. Robert Halsey had joined Dr. Quintard, and the two physicians noted improvement in the patient. “Mr. Clemens had a comfortable night,” reported Halsey on Sunday, April 17, “and he has improved. He still has a great deal of distress with his breathing, but he has had no severe cardiac difficulty since he returned to Redding.”10

d

As Twain weakened, the comet gained strength. Had the humorist been strong enough to walk outside in the predawn hours, he could have claimed membership in a select group: the handful of men and women who had seen the comet twice in their lifetimes. W. S. Welton of Saginaw, Michigan, remembered standing on a hilltop near Owosso in 1835, watching the comet with his friends and relatives. They were all gone now, he remarked. Having lived ninety years, he was the only member of that group who survived to view the comet a second time. When the earth passed through the comet’s tail on May 19, he intended to be back on his hilltop to greet it again. As did Chicago’s Fernando Jones. Jones, poised to celebrate his ninetieth birthday on May 26, was a character who might have sauntered right out of a Twain story. As a teenager he traveled west to make his fortune, reaching Lake Michigan aboard a schooner that had shattered the existing speed record for a ship traveling from Buffalo. He arrived in 1835, two years before Chicago was officially incorporated as a city. “Young Mr. Jones,” wrote a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, “was 15 years old then, and soon after he arrived, he performed the feat which became one of the epics of Chicago history. He killed the wolf on the spot where the First National bank now stands.”11 If Jones had been more percipient, hinted the reporter, he wouldn’t have wasted time shooting wolves, but rather would have hurriedly staked out city lots that could be sold to those who arrived years later. Chicago grew 140

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from a small frontier town to America’s second largest city during the seventy-five years that separated the two visits of Halley’s Comet. “The early pioneers lacked the business instinct and frittered away their time shooing wolves out of the potato patch in the back garden and romping over the landscape stalking the red indian,” concluded the Tribune.12 Jones retained vivid memories of the comet. “As I remember, it was visible in Chicago for about six weeks.”13 The comet, he said, also impressed the local Pottawatomie Indians. “It did not create much excitement among the whites, but the Indians were greatly affected. All tribes in this part of Illinois were called together and special ceremonies in propitiation of the heavenly visitor were indulged in.”14 Seventy-five years later, Jones retained his sense of wonder. “I have witnessed some remarkable things during my life, but none that was any more wonderful than Halley’s comet. And if it shall come again on my 90th birthday, I will count myself more greatly blessed than many other men.”15 Margaret Kinsloe of Muskogee, Oklahoma, remembered the comet scaring many people in Pennsylvania, where she had lived in 1835. “Most of the people in our community thought it a sign that the world was coming to an end. I didn’t think much about it. I never was superstitious and, besides, Mr. Kinsloe and I were preparing for our marriage and I had too much to think about. The comet seemed to me a trivial thing beside the prospect of our wedding.”16 Now a ninety-six-year-old widow living with her granddaughter, Mrs. Kinsloe read the newspaper every morning to keep her mind active, following that with a two-mile walk. Her memory was still sharp, and she looked forward to seeing the comet again. In Arkansas, J. H. Alexander formed the Halley’s Comet Club for those who had seen the comet twice. It was an exclusive organization: potential members were required to prove that they had seen the comet during its 1835 pass. Although several nonagenarians, octogenarians, and even a few septuagenarians applied for membership in the new club, none met Alexander’s rigorous admission standards. The cranky old man founded a circumscribed club and monopolized the leadership positions. Alexander held the offices of club president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and “Inspector of Comets.”17 141

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The few Americans whose lives had spanned two orbits of the comet were a select group. Not only had these men and women achieved amazing longevity, but they witnessed remarkable and rapid change across the United States. The first wagons departed on the Oregon Trail in 1836, a year after the comet passed; a network of railroad lines knit the entire country together by 1887, and as the comet returned, cars drove on paved roads while airplanes and airships explored the skies. Members of this exclusive club, those whose lives were bookended by cometary appearances, remembered the apprehension that surrounded the 1835 visit, but if age and experience had taught them anything, it was that this astronomical event was something to be welcomed rather than feared. Seventy-five years of waiting had made the aged sky watchers eager to see the comet a second time. The unofficial astronomer of the Los Angeles Times, William Henry Knight, had an honorary membership in the double-dipping comet club. Like Mark Twain, he was born in 1835, and thus had been an infant during the previous visit. Knight was also a writer who contributed frequent articles to the Times about astronomy and scientific progress. Unlike Twain, Knight enjoyed excellent health. In April, as Twain lay dying, Knight prepared to see the comet that had ushered in his birth. He set his alarm clock for a quarter to four in the morning but was so excited about seeing the comet that he woke fifteen minutes before the bell sounded. Knight leaped from his bed, grabbed his binoculars, and left his house. He hiked up Witmer Street. “It was an exhilarating tramp in the fresh air,” he wrote, “the perfect stillness which precedes day-dawn prevailed. Not a bird-note nor a footstep, not even that of the nocturnal ‘cop’ broke the profound silence.”18 When Knight reached the summit of Crown Hill, he was disappointed to see that Los Angeles’s spread of electric lights overwhelmed the stars nestling against the eastern horizon. Only Venus, that brightest of planets, was clearly visible. Suddenly the streetlights winked out. Knight braced his body against the rough wood of a telephone pole and scanned the horizon. There was “a reddish haze through which the first streaks of dawn were breaking.” He searched this band patiently and finally detected “a 142

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faint object, the nucleus of the comet.” Although the strengthening dawn obscured the tail, Knight knew enough about astronomy to be looking in the correct position. “I had caught the coveted glimpse of Halley’s renowned traveler through the void of space.”19 This was a special moment for him. Like Mark Twain, he had no memory of the comet’s 1835 visit. After a life spent devoted to astronomy, the elder Knight could now appreciate what he had missed as an infant. “I was amply rewarded this morning for my early vigils by catching this first glimpse of the wonderful celestial tramp which heralded my own arrival on this mundane sphere three-quarters of a century ago.”20

d

The approaching comet was visible only in the hours before dawn, a situation that suited the larks—that small subdivision of humanity that happily beats the sun from its cradle in the morning. Those who rise in the predawn hours, without recourse to alarm clocks or irritable bedmates, were best positioned to view the comet as it increased in both brilliance and separation from the sun’s swamping light. As April slipped by, the number of early morning observers grew. Many decided to use a new technology to help them rise: customers left requests for wake-up calls with telephone switchboard operators. In these early friendly days of Bell’s invention, operators were happy to assist, although, they found themselves overwhelmed in the mornings as more customers requested calls. The comet, noted the Los Angeles Times, also provided a very convenient excuse for straying husbands. If a man wanted to come home late—or slip away early—for an extramarital rendezvous, a sudden interest in comets provided a useful alibi. “It has served many Californians with excuses to tell their wives.”21 On the other hand, the comet could also crush budding love. A pair of lovers in Charleston, Pennsylvania, declared their intent to marry. Unfortunately, wrote the Pittsburgh Daily Post, the young lady, a mere seventeen, required her father’s permission before the nuptials could proceed. 143

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Dad was unimpressed. He told his daughter’s suitor that he would have to wait a couple of years until she was older. Frustrated but undefeated, the pair decided to elope. They agreed that the young man would secure a carriage and arrive at the family home before dawn to whisk his love away. On the appointed morning, she rose at 3:00 a.m., dressed, and quietly packed a bag. Suddenly, there was a clatter outside her door. Her father, seeing a light in her bedroom, came in and found her prepared for departure. Dad was not normally awake at this hour, but he had risen to look at the comet that everyone had been talking about. His daughter refused to explain herself, but when a quiet “hello” wafted up from the street outside the house, the situation became clear. The father rushed down the stairs, flung open the door, and spotted his would-be son-in-law sitting in a buggy. “Seeing the father, the young man applied the whip and disappeared.”22 Clearly the comet was a threat to young love and kings.

d

William Knight exulted when he first spotted the returning comet, considering it the capstone of his scientific writing career; Mark Twain believed the comet signaled his demise. The humorist was right. Knight’s rhapsodic description of his early morning encounter with the comet shared the same issue of the Los Angeles Times as the front-page story announcing Twain’s death. On April 21, 1910, America’s finest humorist passed away. Twain’s sudden departure surprised his physicians. Although weak the previous day, he had rallied overnight. The correspondent for the Los Angeles Times wrote, “For long hours [Twain’s] gray, aquiline features lay moulded in the inertia of death, while the pulse sank steadily, but at night he passed from stupor into the first natural sleep he had known since he returned from Bermuda, and then he woke refreshed, even faintly cheerful, and in full possession of his faculties.”23 The convalescence was temporary. Even the presence of family and his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, failed to check his slide toward death. “Why do you fight to keep me alive?” Twain asked his nurses. 144

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“Two days of life are as good to me as four.”24 As angina lanced his heart, the doctors increased the dose of sedatives. Twain recognized his daughter, Clara, who had arrived from Europe to attend her father. After struggling to speak, he took up a pencil and wrote a note: “Give me my glasses.” It was the last sentence he would ever write. Less than ninety minutes before his death, Dr. Halsey told the press, “Mr. Clemens is not as strong at this hour as he was at the corresponding hour yesterday, but he has wonderful vitality and he may rally again.”25 Halsey was wrong. Twain slipped into a coma at 3:00 p.m. and stopped breathing at 6:30 p.m. “The king is dead—long live the king,” wrote journalist Robertus Love for the American Press Association wire service. “But there is no heir, either apparent or presumptive. The throne of humor, whose kingdom was the world, is empty. The scepter that swayed the universal heart—the pen—lies idle at last.”26 Tributes from a bereft world flooded in. President Taft issued a consolatory statement from the White House: “Mark Twain gave pleasure—real intellectual enjoyment—to millions, and his writings will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come. He never wrote a line that a father could not read to his daughter.”27 As condolences filled the newspapers, doctors debated the underlying cause of Twain’s angina. Was his smoking—he often consumed twenty cigars a day—responsible for his heart condition? The habit was so ingrained that Twain suffered when his soulless doctors restricted his daily ration to four cigars a day. Even in his final hours of consciousness, lacking the strength to speak, he had fluttered his hand as if it still grasped a cigar, and pursed his lips to suggest a man exhaling a bitter cloud of tobacco smoke. Twain devoted more than fifty years to smoking. Doctors and newspaper reporters debated the consequences of this lifestyle choice after his death. “Some constitutions,” said Dr. Halsey, “seem immune to the effect of tobacco. This was one of them.”28 Other doctors were dubious: surely Twain’s prodigious consumption of tobacco had damaged his heart and lungs. 145

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Mark Twain, had he been able to register an opinion, would surely have seen no harm in a cigar. He knew the cause of his death—he had predicted it a year earlier: Halley’s Comet had foretold the passing of the king of humor.

d

Twain was a king by accomplishment rather than heredity; the same could not be said about the ruler of England. As the comet strengthened in the morning sky, British newspapers reported that King Edward VII had fallen ill. Like Twain, Edward was a heavy smoker, consuming several cigars and cigarettes each day. Bronchitis plagued his final years. The monarch’s poor health was an ongoing concern for the royal physicians. An operation in 1907 to remove a skin cancer from his face had nearly killed him. He was also “troubled with a weak throat, and any cold produces inflammation with choking symptoms.”29 During a March visit to France, the king succumbed to an unspecified illness. He canceled scheduled events and remained in Biarritz for a short convalescence. A palace spokesman downplayed the seriousness of his condition, leaking reports that suggested his full recovery. American newspaper stories depicted him as lively and full of energy. When Mrs. William Moore, an American socialite, threw a party for Edward at the French resort town, he amused the other guests with his lively banter. Upon arrival the orchestra played the English national anthem; following this bit of pomp, Edward announced, “The King is no longer present. There are none here but his friends.” The guests then engaged in “all sorts of frolics and amusements” including the release of rabbits, a battle with flowers, and a brief war in which the guests, casting pellets of dough at each other, made “nice, white, fuzzy marks on everything they touched.” By the time the servants announced dinner, the guests looked as if they ground flour for a living.30 These hijinks were one of the king’s final flings. After a seven-week stay in Biarritz, Edward returned to England. The king had planned to join his wife, Queen Alexandra, aboard the royal yacht in Marseilles and take a short voyage to Lisbon, but their trip was canceled. Rumors circulating in the press suggested that a case of influenza had forced Edward to remain longer than expected in Biarritz, but his personal physician, Sir 146

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James Reid, denied that theory. The king had suffered from a cold that was exacerbated by France’s poor weather. He returned to London fully recovered and ready to resume his responsibilities. The possibility of meeting Theodore Roosevelt was one of the king’s less attractive duties. The flamboyant former president was on the European leg of his world tour and, with a pack of newspapermen in tow, careened around the continent like a Rough Rider storming a hill. Sources claimed that the king’s advisers were divided over whether to receive the ex-president. King Edward, they whispered, disapproved of Roosevelt and was trying to find an excuse to forestall a meeting. This was not true, announced Lord Knollys, the king’s private secretary. Plans were moving ahead to receive “Col. Roosevelt,” although it had not been decided whether the meeting between king and ex-president would take place over lunch or dinner. In either event, England had already confirmed the meeting, and the British Secret Service guaranteed Roosevelt’s security while he was in England. “You may say that the King looks forward with the greatest pleasure to meeting and entertaining Roosevelt,” said Knollys.31 As preparations for a lavish reception proceeded, King Edward canceled his appearances and vanished from the public eye. Most notable was his absence from a May 3 luncheon held to honor Robert Peary, one of the two men claiming to have reached the North Pole. London crowds filled the streets to cheer the explorer, and a celebratory banquet attracted the city’s leading dignitaries: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, offered a speech in Peary’s honor. Captain Robert Scott, who two months later would depart for an ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole, sat at the head of the table near Peary. The assembled celebrities feted the conquering hero, but where was the king? The distinguished company offered toasts to their monarch, but Edward was inexplicably absent from the party. Edward’s staff did a remarkable job shielding their king from the inquisitive press. News of his illness remained concealed until he proved unable to meet his wife, Queen Alexandra, when she arrived suddenly from France. “It has been the king’s invariable rule to be present on the queen’s arrival from any out-of-town journey, and his 147

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absence this evening was made the subject of general comment immediately,” reporters noted.32 Queen Alexandra hurried to the palace, and shortly thereafter, a bulletin disclosed the king’s grave condition: “His Majesty, the King is suffering from a severe bronchial attack and has been confined to his room for the last two days. His Majesty’s condition causes some anxiety.”33 Edward spent Thursday, May 5, attended by the queen, Prince George of Wales, the Duchess of Argyll, and his physicians. The final bulletin of the evening was reassuring: the king appeared to be improving. Friday gave back the little progress the king had made toward recovery. It was a dark day in Britain and throughout the commonwealth. The popular king faltered. Choking spells interfered with his breathing and made his heart race. The Archbishop of Canterbury visited three times— an ominous sign. As the cleric departed in the afternoon, newspaper reporters mobbed him and pressed for an update. “Very bad,” said the archbishop.34 Loyal subjects gathered in the country’s churches to hold prayer vigils. Late in the afternoon, between struggling breaths, Edward whispered, “Well, it is all over, but I think that I have done my duty.”35 Hours later, the physicians issued a terse update: “The king’s symptoms have become worse during the day and his condition at this time, 6 p.m., is critical.”36 In addition to the bronchitis, the king had also developed double pneumonia. Dr. St. Clair Thompson, Britain’s greatest throat specialist, was consulting on the case. The doctors had considered—and rejected—emergency surgery, believing that the king was too weak to survive an operation. There was a small patch of bright news for King Edward: on Friday afternoon his racehorse, Witch of the Air, won the Spring Plate Race at Kenton Park. After the victory, racing fans cheered wildly and broke into a spontaneous chorus of “God Save the King.” Share values on the London and New York stock markets slumped as traders worried about European stability. Edward served as an important mediator between the increasingly belligerent France and Germany, and diplomats questioned if the fragile peace would hold without the king’s calming presence. The fashionable set debated the 148

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impact of the king’s demise on London’s social scene. The king and his family had been “the leading figure in English society, and to a great extent its arbiter.”37 Would the monarch’s untimely death throttle the promising season, casting a pall of funereal gloom over the country? Life slipped away in the final minutes of Friday, May 6, 1910. As midnight approached, Edward took his final wheezing breath and stepped across death’s threshold. Minutes later his son, George, the Prince of Wales, succeeded his father in accord with the laws of the country. His first act was to issue a short declaration to his people: “I am deeply grieved to inform you that my beloved father, the king, passed away peacefully at 11:45 tonight.”38 The comet brings the death of kings. Even as the world’s newspaper editors cleared their front pages to make room for England’s sad news, some were already connecting the return of Halley’s Comet and the king’s unexpected death. “To the superstitious all over England, and indeed all over Europe, the death of the King will seem a confirmation of the old belief that the appearance of a comet portends the death of a ruler,” wrote an editor for the London Guardian.39 After all, Edward was not the first British king “claimed” by Halley’s Comet: Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson had also fallen under its malign influence in 1066. Was the comet responsible for the death of King Edward? Evidence for that possibility arrived from Bermuda. On Friday night, when the sad news reached Bermuda, the English fort overlooking Hamilton City’s harbor began firing the traditional 101-gun salute, honoring the departed king and his successor, King George. The slow volley of shots commenced at 12:30 a.m. and cracked out every two minutes. At 2:00 a.m., Halley’s Comet rose in the east, cloaked in the color of celestial blood. As the guns of Fort Hamilton thundered, the comet climbed above the scene. Then, as the last gun fired at 3:52 a.m., the comet’s tail flared, blazed crimson, and discharged a volley of red sparks. The head, “now distinctly visible, became a ball of red fire.”40 Many witnesses saw this remarkable transformation: it was “recorded by an experimental scientist,” wrote the Syracuse, New York, Post-Standard. Additionally, “this phenomenon was observed by many negroes working 149

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on the docks loading the steamship Bermudian and they fell on their knees and prayed, refusing to work.”41 These reports failed to impress astronomy’s gossip columnist, Mary Proctor. The red glow that scared the people of Bermuda was easily explained: low-lying mist often alters the color of the moon and planets. “On the morning of May 6,” wrote Proctor, “while observing the comet I happened to glance downward in the direction of the horizon, when my attention was attracted by what seemed to be a curving tongue of flame. For a moment I thought it was a fire, until I remembered that the moon should be rising at this time. As it was [a] crescent shape, it resembled the appearance of a red scimitar glowing through the mist.”42 These atmospheric aberrations could certainly produce a sense of disorientation in those unaccustomed to seeing them. The comet’s red hue appeared alarming, but science could account for the odd display. No one should believe that the comet was celebrating the death of a king. But was this true? Halley’s Comet had again brought death to a king. Were Mark Twain and Edward VII—king of comedy and king of England—the only two rulers who would feel the brush of the comet’s tail?

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Chapter Twelve

Rationality Won’t Keep out the Rain

We want to see the comet, too And watch it as we pass Up through its tail, which is composed Of millions miles of gas To get so much gas free of cost Indeed will be a treat Down here it costs us eighty cents For just a thousand feet —Brooklyn Daily Times, April 20, 1910 If the newspapers were to be believed, many in Bermuda were convinced that the comet was responsible for the death of King Edward. With only a month remaining until the earth passed through the comet’s tail, modern, science-based rationality wrestled with centuries of deeprooted superstition. This raised an interesting question: How deep did human rationality and belief in scientific progress go? Was enlightened thought nothing more than a thin skin of ice over the dark waters of primordial superstition? How narrow was the divide between reason and unhinged irrationality? The Pittsburgh Press devoted a full page to the question. Two local ministers, in a point/counterpoint article, debated how humans would react if the earth was threatened with destruction. If scientists announced that Halley’s Comet was about to strike the earth, would people abandon the veneer of civilization and 151

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regress to irrationality? How would they behave in the planet’s final days? It was the Omega scenario from a theological perspective. Reverend Rudolph Coffee was given the unenviable task of serving as an advocate for human sobriety and common sense. He defended the proposition that scientific advances had dealt a death blow to superstition. The species no longer labored beneath the superstitious shadow of heavenly dread. Modern humans had finally embraced the sentiment of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah: “Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens.”1 In fact, contended Coffee, the annals of history provided many examples that suggested rationality was a common response to an approaching disaster: Socrates had calmly downed his flask of hemlock; Romans facing death in the arena shouted, “I, who am about to die, salute you”; Christians accepted martyrdom with calm tranquility. History was replete with instances of men and women meeting their demise with level-headed calm. But weren’t these examples statistical outliers? Didn’t most people behave poorly when faced with death? Coffee offered the precedent of AD 1000. In that fatal year, he suggested, Europeans believed the apocalypse was at hand. A millennium had run off the calendar and the three zeros suggested a logical end point for the age of men. Did people panic? Of course not. They packed the churches, joined the crusades, and spiritually girded their loins to meet their fate. If we were to find ourselves in a similar situation, argued Coffee, then a culture that spent too much time absorbed in transient, secular concerns would quickly reorient its priorities toward the eternal. An approaching disaster would clarify our thinking and priorities. Earth’s peoples would return to God in great droves and meet the end fully convinced that death was a part of his plan. The earth’s destruction might be the best thing for the human race. Stuff and nonsense! Reverend Albert Dieffenbach was unpersuaded. Although he agreed with Reverend Coffee that science had liberated humanity from medieval superstition, enlightenment’s flame would expire if we learned that our planet stood in a comet’s flight path. 152

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Humans have a remarkable ability to take their environment for granted, wrote Dieffenbach. Each day the sun rises and provides the energy that fuels life on our planet. “It brings a certain even, calm, unhurried order, also, so that we can lay our plans and live our lives many days ahead, knowing that whatever else may happen, the surety of the earth (and the rest of the worlds, in fact) is fixed and that we shall not be left in the lurch.”2 Our lives are predicated on a stable environment; no one worries if the sun will rise tomorrow morning—it arrives each new day without exception. But now, continued Dieffenbach, imagine a situation in which all certainties are smashed. A comet approaches, and our scientists confirm that it will strike the earth; when the sun rises on the morning after the impact, the planet will be stripped of life, a smashed and smoldering wasteland. “It is the judgment day. The world is about to be utterly routed, ruined, annihilated. What is the feeling of the multitude?”3 Certainly not the detached calmness of Socrates contemplating his cup. In fact, argued Dieffenbach, most humans would die in the hysteria, panic, and global mayhem that was guaranteed to explode in the months preceding the comet’s arrival. “The day of destruction would find the inhabitants already rent and shattered, and in most cases, indeed, dead, their bodies strewn upon the earth, their ghastly and gaunt faces and limbs bespeaking in death, the horrible and reasonless visitation.”4 Humans would consider the cataclysm a cosmic betrayal; it would be regarded as certain proof that God was not in his heaven and that humans were the victims of indifferent forces. What would be the point of the Christian faith? “God would be a mocking, and religion and morals a vain and unheeded pretense.”5 Stripped of what had formerly appeared so certain, humans would quickly abandon a religion they felt had betrayed them. “If, then, the music of the spheres should come, mocking hideously, a mad warning of our undeserved destruction, no mortal mind could contain itself for the fear and anger and despair surging in humanity’s tricked and unstrung being.”6 Humanity would embrace an Epicurean grab for final pleasures. The planet would plunge into lawless disorder as panicked people competed 153

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for scarce resources. Society would rapidly unravel as policemen stopped patrolling the streets and judges quit wasting time hearing cases. “Men rushing into one another would be brutally ruthless, and such carnage from wild fisticuffs, drunken shooting, hopeless and hateful murder, it is not for the word of man to describe.”7 The churches—monuments to an empty faith—would be shuttered or burned. Society would swiftly plunge into complete anarchy as, in the final days, the strong consumed the weak and took what little pleasure could be extracted from the hopeless situation. The last survivors, skulking among the flame-scorched rubble of devastated cities, might welcome the comet’s arrival. Death would prove a sweet release from the horror unleashed after humans abandoned the social conventions and religions that guard civilized life. It was madness to believe that terrified humans would meet the end with Socratic detachment. Reverend Dieffenbach’s pessimistic appraisal appeared more probable than the view of Reverend Coffee. The newspapers printed in April and May 1910 suggested a growing unease, a rise of irrational behavior in response to a nonexistent threat. If people chose to kill themselves, even as the world’s best scientists assured the nations that the comet posed no danger, imagine how quickly panic would drive humans to extreme behavior in the face of a true threat.

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But what if something more insidious was undermining human rationality and altering behavior? Edwin Emerson, in Comet Lore, had suggested that comet gas could produce outbreaks of mass hysteria. “Certain metaphysicians,” wrote Emerson, “have held that there is a substance in a Comet, or in its tail, which had a weird effect on man’s brain, as moonshine is believed to have on some men, making them lunatics.”8 It might be a gas or an effect tied to the proximity of the comet. The moon stirred tides in the earth’s oceans; why couldn’t a comet’s gravity produce behavioral anomalies by altering the poorly understood tidal flows in a person’s brain? “The same irresistible pull of gravity or electricity or light-pressure must perforce affect other substances besides water, such as human brains,” wrote Emerson. “According to this metaphysical theory, 154

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the close approach of a Comet to the earth affects and disturbs men’s brains, so that men are inwardly stirred with warlike impulses. Hence the great wars almost invariably following the appearance of Comets.”9 An article in the Shreveport, Louisiana Times endorsed Emerson’s conjecture. “The near approach of the big celestial wanderer never failed to stir up some sort of rumpus upon the earth’s face. People got to fighting, crusaders began crusading again; tyrants took a renewed delight in plundering helpless neighbors, and the most trivial international quarrel developed into a bloody war.”10 Historians, continued the newspaper, saw a definite correlation between global mayhem and Halley’s Comet. Violent upheaval erupted each time the comet passed the earth. Was this a coincidence? It didn’t appear so. Some “scientists” believed that an unidentified gas unhinged human minds each time the comet passed. Rather than the dangerous, life-snuffing cyanogen, this unidentified compound loosened inhibitions and spread terror. It drove normally sensible people to violence, national uprisings, mass depressions, and suicide. The comet didn’t have to smash into the planet—its insidious gas would trigger global mayhem.

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Emerson’s comet gas theory might explain the sudden flare of revolution in the East. In Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan Province, angry peasants attacked foreigners—mostly Christian missionaries and doctors—living in the city. Rioters burned the Yale University Mission Hospital, forcing Dr. Edward Hume and his wife to flee. With no advance notice and no time to gather their possessions, the Humes ran from the burning hospital and dispensary. They took refuge in the governor’s mansion, minutes before the rioters reached the gates. The mob treated this building, a symbol of authority, with equal contempt: they set fire to the structure. The Hume family fled a second time. They slipped through the back alleys of Changsha, plunging through the twisting passages that led to the river. Enraged pursuers howled in the streets around them; wooden buildings flared as the fires spread, filling the air with gouts of choking black smoke. Somehow, by providence or simple good luck, the Humes reached the river and scrambled aboard a boat. There, huddled among the foreign 155

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missionaries, the Humes watched as their charitable dreams smoked on the altar of revolutionary anger. The boat transported the family to Hankow, a city that had yet to be touched by rioting. The Yale University Mission Hospital was a complete loss. It would have to be rebuilt, along with the dispensary and staff housing, before the medical missionaries could resume their work in Changsha.11 Rioting continued in the city. The Wesleyan China Inland mission burned as the British dispatched gunboats up the Xiang River to quell the violence. Early reports offered conflicting explanations for the sudden uprising: some newspapers claimed that it was a reaction to the Chinese government interfering in the province’s rice trade; others attributed it to a growing dissatisfaction with the imperial regime. In retrospect, the riots were triggered by a number of interlocking factors,12 but several Western newspapers were content to simplify the matter for their readers: the Chinese had revolted because they were terrified of the comet.13 According to the Manchester Guardian, the Chinese had grown increasingly agitated over the approach of the comet. Reverting to patterns of thought that were ingrained in their ancient civilization, the people believed that Halley’s Comet foreshadowed national upheaval and the overthrow of the country’s ruler, the boy emperor Puyi. In Changsha, troublemakers posted placards warning that the comet revealed a European intent to supplant the emperor. “The melon (China) was going to be cut up by the foreign Powers,” claimed the signs.14 It was a volatile situation. Thousands of years of astrology had left the Chinese predisposed to link appearances of a comet to regime change. “There have been apprehensions of more or less general trouble, as in several provinces rumours of China’s partition have been circulated,” wrote the Guardian.15 An old China hand, Mr. E. S. Little, after a recent trip through several provinces, reported that he had never seen such an unsettled condition in the country. “Every foreigner of any experience agreed that the situation was fraught with extreme danger.”16 The Changsha missionaries attempted to defuse concerns about the comet, distributing pamphlets illustrated with images of Halley’s Comet, a detailed description of what could be expected during the coming visit, and the repeated claim that the comet posed no danger to individuals or the state. 156

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The Christian counterpropaganda convinced few. The situation rapidly deteriorated; violent rioters seized control of the city. Three Christian missions were destroyed, as was the Yale Mission College. The provincial governor’s yamen—his official residence—was burned. The European and American missionaries were evacuated without any casualties, but their property and possessions were destroyed. England, America, and France responded by dispatching gunboats. By April 17, concerted pressure from Chinese and European forces suppressed the rioting—for the moment.17 Russian peasants also expressed uneasiness as the comet approached. According to the Manchester Guardian, the country’s newspapers had announced that Russia’s leading astronomers predicted a comet strike in May. Unscrupulous agents used this false story to extract money from gullible peasants, claiming that the donations would pay for “masses and special services during the month of May.”18 Frightened people handed over their savings to both the hucksters and the established church, which had also decided to reap a profit from the anxiety. Across the country, churches and monasteries held extra prayer services to ask God to spare Russia in the coming cataclysm. G. Korpit, a Russian immigrant living in Tacoma, Washington, told his local newspaper that he had just received a letter from his brother in Irkutsk, Siberia. The letter claimed that this city of three hundred thousand was on the edge of revolution. The unexpected appearance of Comet A1910 had terrified the populace. Now, with Halley’s Comet closing on the earth, the Russian peasants were convinced that the end of the world was at hand. Like their counterparts in Hungary, they refused to work, plant crops, or tend their livestock. Businesses shuttered their doors; “farmers are burning their barns and shacks for firewood, and killing their cattle for food, holding it not worthwhile to work when the end of the world is imminent.”19 Not only had the peasants folded their hands in apathetic fear, but they also refused to provide rations for the army troops recently deployed to their city. The Russian government, expecting a Japanese attack on eastern Siberia, sent reinforcements to buttress the provincial defenses. When the 157

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peasants refused to feed the unwelcome extra mouths garrisoned in their communities, the military began searching homes and confiscating what they needed. Comet dread and anger at the army’s overreach drove the peasants to the edge of an uprising. Surely it would not be long before the shooting started.

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Edwin Emerson attributed these societal breakdowns to seeping comet gas; America’s newspapers remained convinced that another culprit fueled the growing hysteria. An American wire service story, released in late April, blamed Camille Flammarion for the upheavals. Although trustworthy American astronomers like Barnard of Yerkes and Pickering of Harvard maintained that the comet’s tail posed no danger, “Camille Flammarion and other prophets who publicly have debated the question of a grand terrestrial knockout May 18 have alarmed the public unnecessarily.”20 Although his risible lies had gained little traction among sensible Americans, suggested the newspapers, many Europeans and Orientals—people lacking intelligence, sophistication, and common sense—were gulled by his alarmist prophecies. “In fact, Halley’s comet has been as effective in stirring up and governing the actions of many Europeans of the ignorant class as would an earthquake or other actual calamity.”21 The newspapers may have overestimated the level-headed sensibility of the American people. In early May, Fred Bowers, a farmer from Orrville, Ohio, announced his intention to default on his bills. Bowers owed money to several businesses in his hometown. When his creditors pressed for payment, he refused. The comet was about to smash the earth and all debts would be effaced by the disaster. Why should he waste his money on these outstanding balances? Not only that, continued Bowers, but Ohioans were wasting their time talking about politics. “The voters have cast their last ballot,” he declared. “The state primaries, May 17, will not be held because the world will be ended by the comet that morning.”22 The proper course, considering the short amount of time remaining, would be to take the presidency away from William Taft and confer the post on defeated presidential candidate 158

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William Jennings Bryan. “I believe Bryan ought to be crowned king of the world at once to let him rule till the world comes to an end. It would not be long. He’s run for office so often he deserves the honor.”23 The police were unamused. Responding to the complaints of local businessmen, they arrested Bowers and locked him in a cell. Bowers’s plaintive cries and howls could be heard echoing in the concrete confines of the city jail. “Prepare to die,” he warned visitors. “You have 15 more days to live. I know I am safe in your hands until May 17. On that day no one but God can save us.”24 Local physicians examined the prophet and decided that his illness lay beyond their skills. His mind “had been dethroned by his fear that the comet will strike and devastate the globe.” The police decided to hold him in the Massillon jail pending transfer to the state insane asylum. Comet madness had claimed another victim, swamping the mind of a formerly rational and productive member of the small Ohio farming community. Who was responsible for this spreading fear? Clearly that French flimflam man, Camille Flammarion. “Despite all that has been made known concerning the harmlessness of the comet which is rushing nearer and nearer the earth,” wrote Benjamin Karr for the Nashville Tennessean, “there is much fear mingled with the wholesome interest the splendid visitor is arousing. For millions of human beings, the pleasure of a grand and novel spectacle will be marred by the dread of some vast calamity, associated with the approach of this wonder of the skies.”25 After stating the “most significant facts” about the comet— namely that neither it nor its tail offered any possible danger to earth’s inhabitants—Karr then directed his fire at the chief disturber of humanity’s calm. “Much of the agitation about the comet as a source of possible danger, is due to the speculations of Camille Flammarion, the brilliant but decidedly erratic French astronomer. He is learned and able, but who can give much heed to a man, in a hopeless minority, who had earned the reputation of being daring and imaginative but also of lacking entire reliability?”26 Did the reader require proof of the man’s flair for the dramatic? Look no further than his past pronouncements. Wasn’t it Flammarion who 159

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proposed a nonsensical scheme for communicating with the Martians? He “wanted a million dollars, more or less, set apart when Mars was nearest the earth, for building on a level spot in the Sahara Desert, where the sky is almost always clear, a vast sign with letters a mile long, at least, so that the Martians, if there are any and they have telescopes, might read this earth-greeting and respond in kind.”27 If that wasn’t wild enough, the preposterous astronomer had topped this mad proposal with the cherry of absurdity: “The finishing touch was put on this scheme by the astronomer’s suggesting that the greeting be spelled out carefully in French—his native tongue.”28 This was ludicrous. Any Martian worthy of a dialogue with earth would have mastered English. It should come as little surprise that Karr’s claim was false. In advance of Mars’s close approach to the earth in September 1909, American astronomer William Pickering had proposed building an array of mirrors to signal the Martians. Flammarion had opposed the signaling plan as a waste of money. Nevertheless, Karr’s obvious mistruth—unchallenged by a sober editor—appeared to offer another example of the Frenchman’s unreliability. For months, American newspapers had employed Flammarion as a French bogeyman, a useful “source” for every wild idea that they wanted to use to terrify their readers and sell papers. No one had done more to popularize science and astronomy during the preceding forty years, but at the moment when Flammarion’s expertise and experience should have made him the leading interpreter and commentator on the wonder unfolding in the skies, the newspapers forced him to play the role of raven at a wedding, croaking doom over gullible newspaper readers. The French astronomer exported fear; an entire continent had nearly succumbed to his alarmist claims. “Flammarion’s prophecies have played hob with the peasantry of Europe and some of their more illuminated brethren.”29 Fortunately, Americans were too smart to fall for Flammarion’s nonsense. Even the Canadians laughed off his claims. Although people once quaked when comets appeared in the heavens, that fear had been relegated to small minds and the superstitious. “We have no fear of it today,” wrote the Montreal Gazette. “M. Camille Flammarion has foretold that the passing of the comet’s tail will mean extinction of the world by laughter, while others prophesy a world-fire and an uprising of Mahomedans who 160

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will regard the comet as a fiery message from Allah; but these are not taken seriously by the astronomers.”30

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Indeed, they were not. Nor were they taken seriously by Camille Flammarion. In early May, Flammarion published an article in France’s Le Figaro, which, when translated into English, received limited distribution in America. Flammarion again attempted to correct the record and reassure readers that May 18 offered no cause for alarm. Superstition clouded previous encounters with the comet, and humans, long accustomed to linking comets and disasters, had feared the sudden apparitions. Even the luminaries of the Scientific Revolution had wavered when confronted with a comet. Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss pioneer in the fields of mathematics and fluid mechanics, wrote that if the body of the comet “is not a visible sign of the wrath of God, the tail might well be one.”31 “The fear of comets is a periodical malady,” continued Flammarion, “which never fails to recur whenever the appearance of one of these stars is announced with some acclaim.”32 Of course, in the modern age, the popular press often amplified that fear. A classic example occurred in 1832 when Comet Biela approached the earth. Astronomers predicted that the comet would intercept the earth’s orbit on October 29. The newspapers immediately broke the news to the earth’s population. “The profound sensation which they produced may be imagined. All was over! The end of time was near; the earth was going to be shattered, pulverized, annihilated by the shock of the comet; such was the theme of all conversations.”33 Unfortunately, noted Flammarion, before rushing to the print shop with the news and spreading panic, the reporters had failed to ask the obvious question: where would the earth be when the comet crossed its orbit? Astronomers made the calculations and determined that the earth would be thirty days away. There was, contrary to the newspaper claims, no danger of a collision. Although fear was a natural reaction, science had demystified comets. They were not harbingers of doom or warnings from the gods. Conse161

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quently, as Halley’s Comet continued its approach, humanity should prepare for a treat. “We shall all see it again with pleasure this year,” Flammarion concluded. “Comets have passed from the domain of legend into that of reality.”34

d

Flammarion’s fresh attempt to defuse the growing dread went largely unnoticed. American newspapers had little interest in his sensible, sober views. While disavowing responsibility for the growing global unease, publishers continued to exploit the approaching comet for their own profit. On April 16, the venerable Saturday Evening Post jolted its readers with a cover story titled “The Peril of the Comet.” The article’s author, Waldemar Kaempffert, would later become one of the twentieth century’s leading science journalists. Born in 1877, Kaempffert attended school in New York, graduating at age twenty from City College. He joined the staff of Scientific American and in 1911 became the journal’s managing editor. In later years he led the editorial offices of Popular Science magazine before finishing his career as the science editor for the New York Times. In addition to the many articles he wrote for newspapers and magazines, Kaempffert also wrote six books on scientific subjects for a popular audience.35 The Peril of the Comet was not Kaempffert’s first foray into cometology: earlier in the year he had written an article for Cosmopolitan magazine examining the theory that the biblical star of Bethlehem had actually been Halley’s Comet. After discounting alternate theories—the Magi from the east had witnessed the conjunction of two planets ( Jupiter and Saturn or Venus and Mars)—Kaempffert turned to the possibility that a comet had appeared to herald Christ’s birth. “In Biblical times,” he wrote, “comets occasionally appeared that were brilliant enough to strike terror into superstitious hearts.”36 Comets occupied a special category in the observations of ancient peoples, noted Kaempffert, “but whether or not the Star of Bethlehem really was such an apparition no one can affirm with certainty.”37 Despite this judicious sentiment, Kaempffert appeared unpersuaded by the comet theory. He believed that the star was actually a supernova, 162

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similar to the celestial explosion that Tycho Brahe observed in 1572. Unlike a comet, an exploding star would have been unusual enough to attract the attention of the Chaldean astronomers. The novelty might have even prompted the magi to travel to Bethlehem. In short, there was a scientific basis for the gospel story, even if it did not involve a comet. Kaempffert’s Saturday Evening Post article began on a sober, scientific footing; it detailed the methods Professor Wolf had employed to detect the returning Halley’s Comet, the difficult orbital mathematics solved by Professors Cowell and Crommelin, and then offered a scientific history lesson that explained Edmond Halley’s contribution to astronomy. The first page of this article was an original contribution, but the moment the reader turned the page, the words became familiar. Kaempffert praised Halley’s role in dispelling “the dreadful divinity with which comets once were judged,” but in doing so, Halley had been forced to consider another awful possibility: what if the comet struck the earth?38 Hadn’t American book buyers read these paragraphs recently? Yes they had: Kaempffert copied the material that filled the following pages of his article from the chapter titled “The Peril of the Comet” in Edwin Emerson’s Comet Lore. It was a deed that would have brought tears of shame to honest Benjamin Franklin, founder of the Saturday Evening Post. Kaempffert relentlessly plagiarized Emerson’s book. Blocks of text were excerpted without alteration and proffered as his own work. Once again the reader was treated to Lalande’s fear of a comet-induced tidal wave, Professor Pickering’s claim that a comet would strike the planet every 400 million years,39 and Camille Flammarion’s suggestion that the earth’s inhabitants might laugh themselves to death in the comet’s tail. The article closed with Emerson’s graphic description of a comet strike— originally stolen from Camille Flammarion’s Omega—ending with all life destroyed and the planet left to swim “through space, a blackened planetary cinder, desolate and dead.”40 This article was stunning on a number of levels. Apart from the shameless plagiarism, it marked a radical departure from the author’s sober science articles. Two weeks earlier, Kaempffert had published an article titled “The Most Famous of Comets” in Collier’s Weekly magazine. Grounded in scientific fact, this entry offered a brief scientific history 163

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of the comet, explained how it had been detected, discussed the ongoing scientific debate about the nature of comets, and concluded with a debunking of the claims that the tail offered any danger to life on earth.41 It was the sort of article that a no-nonsense astronomer like Barnard of Yerkes or Pickering of Harvard might have written. So why, two weeks later, did Kaempffert publish under his own name a plagiarized version of Emerson’s nonsense in the Saturday Evening Post? The Collier’s story illustrated the good service a magazine article could perform for its readers. The Saturday Evening Post article was designed to terrify more than 1.5 million subscribers, offering a huge audience for Emerson’s deliberately deceptive views. The reaction to this inflammatory article was characteristically pious: it was condemned as unnecessarily sensationalistic by the same newspapers that were stoking the growing national anxiety. The Los Angeles Times commented, “The foolish fears inspired in the minds of some credulous people by yellow newspapers in regard to the possible effects upon the earth of the comet have mostly disappeared in light of more authentic information. Yet we occasionally see silly and misleading reports on the subject. The leading article in the most widely circulated American weekly on April 16 was entitled ‘The Peril of the Comet.’ It is a shame thus unnecessarily to scare nervous people.”42 Other newspapers were less critical. The Zanesville Times-Recorder in Ohio happily reprinted many of the lurid details found in the Kaempffert/Emerson story, with a preface that suggested the earth’s doom: “The peril of the comet grows greater day by day, for it is scheduled to swing around the sun on April 20. If the earth is not totally destroyed by that ‘merry-go-round’ it will stand another chance of getting a bump, for on May 18 the earth is doomed to crash right into the tail of the comet with the assurance that what happens will be ‘a-plenty.’”43 The Times-Recorder then printed the conclusion of the Saturday Evening Post article in which the earth smashed into a comet and was left a lifeless blackened cinder.

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Nearly three decades after the earth passed through Halley’s tail, on October 30, 1938, the Columbia Broadcast Network sparked a national panic when its radio stations featured Orson Welles in a teleplay based on H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Even though this radio play, which featured realistic reports of aliens landing in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, before they moved on to attack New York, ran with disclaimers that it was only a dramatization of the book, a few listeners panicked.44 In the aftermath of the “invasion,” pious newspaper editors denounced Wells and Columbia for their irresponsible show. There was a precedent for such irresponsibility: the American newspaper editors who decided to serialize passages from Flammarion’s Omega days before the earth would pass through the comet’s tail. The Pittsburgh Press, one of the first newspapers to reprint portions of the work, did note that this was “a bit of fiction” and that “there’s absolutely no danger threatening the earth from Halley’s comet.”45 Nevertheless, in a climate of growing anxiety, the publication of a story in which “Flammarion vividly pictures the discovery of a comet, its gradual approach, its increasing brightness, its terrible psychological effects on the inhabitants of the world, its collision with the earth, and the destruction of all life on the globe”46 verged on journalistic malpractice. If Camille Flammarion’s pronouncements had contributed to the popular fear, the reintroduction of a story in which a comet strikes the earth was unlikely to produce a calming effect.

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The ongoing sensationalistic newspaper coverage touched psychologically fragile readers. In one week, claimed a wire service report, four people in Wheeling, West Virginia, killed themselves to avoid the terrors that threatened the earth on May 18.47 Forty-two-year-old Margaret Hutchinson, an Irish immigrant, hung herself with a bed cord tied to a meat hook in her cellar. She had climbed on top of a chair and then “had broken her neck by kicking the chair out from beneath her feet.”48 Her husband, Samuel, discovered her body. Nearby was a note that explained she had killed herself to avoid what the comet was about to do to the planet. 165

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Anna Springfield left a note saying that she preferred to depart from life before the comet took away her choice. The bottle of carbolic acid she had consumed lay beside her fallen body. “No comet for mine,” wrote Springfield in her suicide note.49 William Flanagan jumped in front of a “heavy freight train bound from Pittsburgh to Wheeling, at the mouth of the Hempfield Tunnel, and was cut into ribbons.”50 A “negro servant girl,” continued the Associated Press, in nearby Clarksburg emulated Anna Springfield, killing herself with a fatal draught of poison. It was an exceptional week for Wheeling, West Virginia, claimed the syndicated story. Comet madness accounted for four of the week’s eleven suicides.51 Contrary to Reverend Coffee’s confident assertions, the pressure of the unknown, magnified by sensationalistic media coverage, was beginning to split the thin fabric of rationality. And despite their attempt to shift the blame elsewhere, the newspapers and national magazines benefited the most from the spreading unease.

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Chapter Thirteen

Up on a Roof

Flammarion, the French astronomer, declares that the gases which form the tail of Halley’s comet are likely to envelop the earth next May and exterminate everybody on it. Now is the time to subscribe. —Santa Cruz (CA) Evening News, February 9, 1910 Despite the growing anxiety chronicled in the newspaper articles, a plurality of the world’s population anticipated the comet’s return with awe and amazement. These stalwart observers were unafraid, thankful to live during a year that offered a chance to view one of the sky’s great mysteries. They were the factory workers who dragged their exhausted bodies from warm beds in the hours before sunrise and the families who filled the hotels atop California’s Mount Wilson in the hope of snatching a quick glimpse of the comet through an observatory telescope. For many, if not most humans, the comet was a marvel; the chance to gaze upon it was a story they would one day share with their grandchildren. Mary Proctor, astronomy’s gossip columnist, was a leading exponent of the school of wonder. As May arrived, Mary found herself in New York thinking about how she might make a unique contribution to the media coverage of the comet. The city’s mix of smoke and electric lights created difficult viewing conditions—she needed to rise above the street-level smog. While contemplating this conundrum one afternoon 167

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in late April as she strolled along Broadway, “a glance in the direction of Times Building solved the problem.”1 Mary persuaded Carr Van Anda, managing editor of the New York Times, to grant her access to the roof of the Times Tower. The twentyfive-story skyscraper, a thin matchbook of a building wedged into the narrow space between Seventh Avenue and Broadway, was finished in 1904. Standing on the edge of Times Square, it entered the world’s collective consciousness when Adolph Ochs, the newspaper’s owner, introduced the tradition of lowering a lit ball from the building on New Year’s Eve—a custom that continues to this day. The tower offered a fantastic vantage point for her comet reports. Van Anda—who encouraged his reporters to write science stories—agreed and gave her a building pass. The next morning at 3:00 a.m., Mary arrived in the Times Tower lobby. A janitor took her to the twenty-fifth floor in the building’s elevator, and then the pair climbed the rickety spiral staircase to the door that granted rooftop access. On the morning of April 29,2 Proctor focused her Busch binoculars on the sky and began collecting observations for her inaugural article. Conditions were less than optimal: a bright moon overpowered the stars. The light was so bright that she had no difficulty reading her notes. A deck of mist obscured the eastern horizon. As the minutes ticked past, Proctor scanned the earth’s rim, hoping to see the comet emerge from the murk. The illuminated clock on the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, the world’s tallest building in 1910, provided chronological references for her observations. “At 3:30 o’clock,” wrote Proctor, “I noted Venus glowing at first with a ruddy hue till it reached the clearer sky above the dust and smoke which drifted in the vicinity of the horizon. Then it regained its usual silvery light, undimmed by the clouds.”3 Forty minutes passed. No comet. Finally, at 4:10, Proctor received patience’s reward. “Through a rift in the upper cloud of mist which bordered the horizon I saw what looked at first like a hazy star of ruddy hue, and examining it more closely with a Busch binocular (six power) I noticed that just above it and tilted slightly over in the direction of Venus was a short feathery-looking appendage, reminding me somewhat of a shuttlecock with the feathers 168

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clipped and close together.”4 Proctor had spotted the comet, although it was a rather unimpressive object. She held it centered in her binoculars for two minutes before the mist reclaimed it. More scientist than newspaper reporter, Proctor carefully qualified her first observation report. She hadn’t been given enough time to precisely work out the object’s position: it was low on the horizon and to the left of Venus. Moreover, although she thought she had trapped the comet in her binoculars, she confessed uncertainty about the sighting. Astronomers in Zurich had reported that the comet had lost its tail. If they, with powerful telescopes and the perfect viewing conditions afforded by the high mountain air of the Alps, could not see a tail, then how was it possible that she, with her unimpressive binoculars and the smoky air of New York City, had seen it? “I am wondering,” concluded Proctor, “if the object I saw was Halley’s comet. If so, it scarcely looks any brighter than it did when I saw it Sept. 18, 1909 at 3 A.M., through the great 40-inch refractor at the Yerkes Observatory.”5 Proctor maintained her vigil atop the Times Tower until dawn, but the comet did not reappear. As the sun lit the eastern sky, she descended, undiscouraged. History suggested that comets often lost and then regenerated their tails. Comet Morehouse, during its 1908 pass, had displayed a fan-shaped tail through September, shed the appendage on October 1, and then produced a trio of tails a day later. Proctor was optimistic that Halley’s Comet would offer extraordinary views for those who were willing to meet it before dawn. Carr Van Anda shared her optimism. He printed her first report as a New York Times letter to the editor on April 29, and then decided that, for the month of May, Proctor would be allotted space in the paper for a daily comet report from her Times Tower aerie. She happily accepted the assignment. Overcast skies in the opening days of May discouraged observation, but the morning of the fourth broke clear and frosty. Mary arrived at her normal hour, and when she stepped out onto the roof, she saw the comet glowing in the sky before her. “The hazy-looking object seen on September 17, 1909, had developed into a full-grown comet with a head shining as a star of about the second magnitude, and surrounded 169

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by a nucleus,” she wrote. “Calling down to the janitor to make known the good news, the balcony was soon filled with the Times staff, who were thus enabled to obtain a view of the comet.”6 The clear skies allowed the reporters to discern the comet’s tail. It stretched across thirty degrees of the sky, and “spurts of light like tiny waves seemed to flow out from the nucleus to a distance of two or three degrees.”7 The strange pulsating tail led one reporter to claim that the comet was moving. Proctor knew better—the flickering tail was produced by the air currents stirring the atmosphere above the city. Eddies and bubbles of rising air bent the light and made the tail appear to twinkle. As the clock advanced and dawn paled the east, the comet slowly disappeared into the new day. It had now reached a fine position for viewing, and Proctor counseled her readers to look for the comet between 3:00 and 3:30. “The comet is growing brighter each day and will continue to do so until the 16th. . . . What will it be on the 16th if it keeps increasing at this rate of growth?”8

d

Mary Proctor’s reports may have inspired Flatbush socialite Gertrude Cruser to jump into the comet-watching business. Cruser hit upon the notion of hosting a “comet party,” an idea that the newspapers predicted would quickly become the country’s next fad. Miss Cruser, daughter of Van Dyke Cruser and Alletta Vanderveer Titus, was twenty-one in 1910. A member of the Daisy Chain Society—a group of young people who offered disadvantaged young people in New York City a chance to spend time in the country—she had previously garnered newspaper attention for her altruistic endeavors. Gertrude and her socially concerned friends hosted fundraisers with diverting entertainment that included singers, living pictures, and a farce entitled “A Quiet Family.”9 As she left her schooldays behind, Gertrude entered more fully into Brooklyn society, hosting parties for socially prominent people, patronizing the opera, and attending debutante balls at the Heights Casino. Miss Cruser gained a national profile when she announced plans for a party in honor of the comet. The gathering, scheduled for May 3, 170

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would take place in a three-story brick mansion on Glenwood Road, her maternal grandparents’ home where she lived. She dispatched invitations to thirteen friends—an important number, noted the newspapers—and commanded their attendance at two o’clock in the morning. Local newspapers covered the few details she leaked. Her schedule of entertainment seemed more appropriate for a séance than an astronomical gathering. The mansion would be dark when the thirteen guests arrived. They would be required to navigate a changing room filled with “skeletons and weird heads which will grin and peer at them. The rooms will be strung with delicate silk thread made to resemble the work of spiders.”10 After donning white robes and masks, the guests “will be recognizable only by their voices, which will not be heard above a whisper during the greater part of the morning.”11 Properly garbed, the guests were to be ushered into a dimly lit room filled with the acrid smoke of burning incense and festooned with bats hanging from the ceiling on strings. Miss Cruser planned several “tricks and chills” that she refused to disclose to the reporters. Her guests were scheduled to play a rousing game of “pin the tail on the comet,” and later they would take turns gazing through the large telescope that her grandfather, John Vanderveer, had left her in his will. The first person to spot the comet would win a prize. And finally, as the evening drew to a close, Miss Cruser intended to feed her guests a “Chantecler” supper—a chicken dinner—and the winners of the card games would receive “chantecler favors.” On the designated evening, the young people arrived after midnight, but the fog that plagued Mary Proctor’s observations hung like a sodden veil over the Cruser party. Gray tendrils of damp, ground-hugging mist obscured the heavenly vault. The guests, garbed in their cultic robes, discovered only frustration on the veranda. They traded glances through the telescope until 4:00 a.m., when they gave up. “What good are telescopes if one can’t see more than with the eye?” cried disappointed guest Olive Anderson.12 A British youth, James Blunden, who had fog in his ancestral DNA, assured her that nothing was wrong with the instrument; one simply couldn’t expect the telescope to penetrate the low-hanging mist. 171

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“I think Mr. Halley is just too mean for anything,” commented Miss Zundel. “Here we are all ready to receive him in state and see what happens. He throws water upon our plans.”13 It was a tragic letdown, although the participants did enjoy Gertrude’s other entertainments. The young ladies shrieked when they saw the skeletons and the “grotesque paper Satans” that decorated the mansion’s interior. They took seats in the living room among the stink of incense; bats with oddly glowing eyes hung from the ceiling overhead. The guests played euchre and then assembled around the table to enjoy their Chantecler breakfast. Assessed by its objective—viewing the comet—the party was a failure. Nevertheless, the newspapers carried the story across the country; from Washington, D.C. to Birmingham, Alabama, Gertrude was credited as the innovative mind behind the new comet party fad. The parties were “the latest thing in the line of social diversion among Brooklynites,” wrote the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Evening News. “The young folks of the borough of homes, rubber plants, and baby carriages, tired of euchre and salmagrundi parties during the winter, have taken to the new form of amusement with a zest which bids fair to make it one of the most popular of the season.”14 Why spend the night sleeping, when you could join the fashionable and stay up all night like Gertrude and her friends? Of course there was no reason that a comet party need be restricted to the city’s elite—all social classes could participate. This proved true on the night of May 5, when homeowners along Brooklyn’s Furman Avenue, near Evergreens Cemetery, were rousted from their well-deserved rest by raucous voices shattering the night’s calm. Three men had kindled a bonfire on the hillside set among the graveyard’s marble tombs and headstones. Firelight glinted off the metal flask that traveled hand to hand around their small group; with each revolution, the jollity increased. Finally, tired of the noise, a local resident phoned the Ralph Avenue Police Station. Officer Vogler arrived on the scene. What, he asked the men, were they doing?

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We’re having a comet party, replied one of the intoxicated men. Halley’s Comet would soon rise in the sky and the cemetery’s hillside offered a perfect observation point. The bonfire kept them warm while they waited. Policeman Vogler was not amused. He ordered the merrymakers to extinguish their fire and accompany him to the station. There, William Monahan, Henry Burns, and Edward Mills—all middle-aged men who should have known better—were charged with disturbing the peace and sentenced to a ten-day jail term in lieu of a $10 fine.15 Miss Cruser and her friends became media darlings; Monahan, Burns, and Mills dried out in the Tombs.

d

There was a solution to the low-hanging mist that frustrated the observations of both Mary Proctor and Gertrude Cruser: climb above the clouds in a balloon. Two hours after midnight on the morning of May 6, balloonist Charles Glidden, Professor David Todd, and his wife Mabel Loomis Todd gathered at a launch field in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to embark on a comet-viewing flight. Professor Todd taught astronomy at Amherst College. A couple of days before the flight, he had snapped a photograph of the comet through the college telescope, but sustained observations were hampered by spring cloud cover. Glidden was confident that he could solve the professor’s problem. A balloon flight above the cloud deck would offer clear views of the heavens. Professor Todd’s university colleagues thought that this was a harebrained idea. The balloon’s motion would make it impossible to keep the comet centered in the telescope. It was pointless to even try. Todd, an amateur inventor, thought he had an answer. He had devised a telescope bracket that he hoped would steady his instrument. The flight was an ideal chance to demonstrate the utility of his creation. He also intended to test two other inventions: an “automatic statoscope,” which recorded altitude at fixed intervals, and another instrument that allowed the professor to gauge an object’s height from the air. Clearly the flight would have a full scientific test schedule. Todd planned to fill free moments by recording the tracks of meteors, 173

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logging their motion across the sky. Astronomers debated the relationship between meteors and comets: did comets shed the fiery stones as they approached the earth? Todd hoped to collect data that might help answer this question.16 Glidden’s balloon, the Massachusetts, resembled a flying lollipop. The envelope was a perfect sphere wrapped around fifty-six thousand cubic feet of coal gas, a lighter-than-air substance produced when coal was heated in the absence of air. The mixture of hydrogen, methane, and other hydrocarbons was extremely flammable. A cat’s cradle of ropes tied the balloon to the basket that carried passengers, pilot, and the equipment. At 2:15, the balloon was ready. Glidden, the professor, and Mrs. Todd clambered into the basket. The Massachusetts tugged at her lines. On a signal, the ground crew cast off the tether ropes and the airship lifted serenely into the night. The balloon drifted southeast for four hours, flying over Massachusetts’s woodlands, across the border into Connecticut. The light breeze carried it across a sleeping Hartford until, four miles short of the waters of the Long Island Sound and seven from Colchester, Glidden landed the balloon. The flight had covered nearly eighty miles and the Massachusetts reached a peak altitude of seven thousand feet. The balloon’s thermometer recorded a low temperature of thirty-five degrees. The flight was a success. The telescope bracket proved wonderfully effective, refuting Todd’s ground-bound colleagues. In fact, the calm air and smooth passage of the aerial chariot made a perfectly stable platform for telescopic observation. Todd made four sketches of the comet’s tail, which extended to a length of twenty degrees and curved upward at its end. He also recorded the trajectory of dozens of meteorites that appeared to originate in the region of the comet’s tail. The aeronauts collected data on the comet, Venus, and the moon. He turned his surveying scope on Mount Monad in southwestern New Hampshire. To his delight, his measurements of the mountain’s height agreed with the published figures. The flight was such an enervating experience that Professor Todd refused to speak about it to the newspapermen. He was exhausted, but once he recovered his strength, he promised a full statement. 174

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Aeronaut Glidden was less reticent. During the flight, three miles north of Manchester, Connecticut, someone had fired a rifle at the balloon. The bullet sailed wide, but it could have hit the balloon or its passengers. Glidden was not amused. This was the second time in recent months that he had taken ground fire. The fusillade unnerved Mrs. Todd, and she had spent the second half of their flight worrying about another barrage. Glidden asked the Manchester police to make inquiries but doubted that much would come of it. “Professor Todd of Amherst went up in a balloon to meet Halley’s Comet as near halfway as possible,” wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “Such politeness really should have secured something like a personal interview.”17

d

Not every comet flight proved as successful. Three days later, pilot Arthur Holland Forbes and amateur astronomer James Carrington Yates of New York City departed from Quincy, Illinois, on the evening of May 9 in search of both the comet and a world distance record. Forbes was a keen aeronaut, a man obsessed with record-setting flights. In 1909, he won the Lahm Cup, a prize given in the United States for the longest cross-country flight of the year. Forbes flew from St. Louis to Chesterfield County, Virginia, a distance of 731 miles. A year earlier, he had almost died while competing in a German cross-country race. His balloon, the Conqueror, burst at an altitude of three thousand feet and plummeted toward the ground. Fortunately, the silk envelope unfolded like a parachute and lowered him gently to the earth. He landed, with great aplomb, on the roof of a German house. Undeterred by this near disaster, Forbes continued to chase aviation records. Forbes’s balloon, the Viking, was the largest in the world, engineered to set records. Its silken envelope enclosed eighty-five thousand cubic feet of coal gas. On the evening of May 8, Quincy’s prominent citizens hosted a good luck banquet for the aeronauts, and the next night the two aviators boarded their craft. They loaded the basket with a three-day supply of food, anticipating a flight of record-breaking duration that would carry them to New York. 175

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The Viking ascended into the dark sky. As the balloon climbed higher, the oxygen content of the surrounding air declined. Although it is now well-established that hypoxia—oxygen deprivation—begins to affect humans above 12,500 feet, this was not understood in 1910 when the earliest aerial pioneers explored the heavens. “Some aeronauts take tanks of oxygen with their supplies,” said Forbes after the flight, “but we did not think we would need it. One can become accustomed to the rapid changes in air pressure.”18 The Viking drifted southeast, climbing rapidly. It passed through twelve thousand feet. At eighteen thousand feet, the comet burned clearly in the pristine air. Yates photographed the dazzling sight free of the haze that degraded the view from below. The balloon continued its ascent. The lack of oxygen began to affect the aeronauts. “When we went higher than 18,000 feet,” said Forbes, “the air pressure at that altitude is not more than three or four pounds and it seems that one cannot get enough air. We panted like dogs and my eardrums and eyes pained me greatly.” At 20,600 feet—a new world’s altitude record—the men were freezing and struggling to catch their breath. It was time to descend. Forbes vented gas from the balloon, and the Viking settled earthward. Oxygen deprivation and inexperience with high-altitude flying muddied the pilot’s judgment. Forbes released too much gas, and as the balloon descended, the increasing atmospheric pressure compressed the little gas remaining in the envelope. Their craft fell from the sky. Forbes dumped sand ballast to slow the descent but quickly ran out. The balloon dropped more quickly. “In descending from the great elevation we had very little sand left and as the gas contracted the balloon bag became extremely flabby,” said Forbes.19 Three hundred feet above the earth, the appendix line, which was attached to the bottom of the balloon, broke free. The line wrapped itself on the rip cord and opened a vent on the top of the balloon. The little gas remaining in the envelope escaped. The balloon deflated and once again Forbes found himself in a free fall, the deflated silken envelope battering wildly overhead, acting as a poor parachute. “I cannot describe the sensation of that 300-foot fall to the ground,” said Forbes. “It came so suddenly. I have a faint recollection of seeing 176

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men below me in a plowed field and of sub-consciously trying, it seemed, to tilt up the basket [so] that Mr. Yates and I might spring for the rigging when close to the ground.” The basket did not tilt, and the two men took the full shock of impact when the balloon struck the ground. “I believe the only thing that prevented the breaking of our backs when the basket fell nearly bottom squarely down under the weight of the bag was the rubber air mattress which we had placed in the bottom of the basket that we might be comfortable when we wanted to lie down.”20 The balloon, basket, and the two aeronauts dug a crater in the rich soil of a farm outside Center, Kentucky, 362 miles from their point of origin. The impact knocked the aviators unconscious. When the farmers who had witnessed the Icarian plunge from the heavens pulled the fliers from the wreckage, the two men appeared dead. A search of the bodies revealed that Forbes carried a printed card with his name and instructions: “In case of accident notify the New York Times.”21 Clearly the aviator had no intention of departing life quietly. Despite the dramatic fall, the men clung to life. The farmers improvised stretchers and carried the battered aviators to a nearby house. Early reports from Kentucky were pessimistic; physicians doubted either man would survive the accident. Forbes rallied first. He drifted in and out of consciousness, asking if he was in New York. Back in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mrs. Forbes told her friends that she had foreseen the disaster in a dream. She had a vivid premonition during the night before the accident. “I could see my husband and Mr. Yates, apparently in great distress. They called for assistance, but I was powerless to help. They seemed to rise through the clouds, then reappear close to the earth. Finally, I seemed to see them fall suddenly and I awoke. When I arose at daybreak and glanced over the morning paper, I fainted.”22 Despite her terrible premonition, Mrs. Forbes was convinced that as soon as he was fit, her husband would resume chasing the world’s distance record. Although they had received a mighty blow and spent several hours unconscious, Forbes and Yates both rallied, and by Friday, May 13, were awake and resting comfortably. The balloon was destroyed, and although Forbes would later return to the sky, he wouldn’t, as he had planned, be in the air on the night that the earth passed through the comet’s tail. 177

Chapter Fourteen

Cosmic Death Ray

If Halley’s comet’s cyanogen tail is as bad as the spring bonfire odor it’s no wonder the astronomers are stirred up about it. —Lincoln County (NC) News, April 5, 1910 Although science had advanced to a point at which astronomers could plot a comet’s orbit and, in the case of Halley’s, predict when the earth would pass through its tail, many questions remained unanswered. What, for example, lay at the heart of a comet? Rock? Valuable metals? A collection of meteorites? Did a comet even have a solid center, or was it nothing more substantial than a bubble of gas? And what about the tail? Was it a gaseous plume or something else entirely? And if the latter, what was it? During the first week of May, with less than eighteen days remaining before the comet’s arrival, Collier’s magazine offered the article “Concerning the Comet,” which explored one of these mysteries. Beneath an illustration depicting the relative positions of earth and the comet during the first three weeks of the month, an unnamed author surveyed the prevailing scientific explanations for the tail. It might be a stream of gas, lit by sunlight or a source of light contained in the comet’s nucleus. There was, however, another possible explanation for the tail’s appearance. “A year ago,” wrote the Collier’s author, “I made the announcement that comets’ ‘tails’ were sunlight, focused and transmitted through space by the heads of comets acting as huge spherical lenses. In other words, the 179

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‘tail’ of a comet is practically the same as the beam of a searchlight. This has since been proven by observation at many observatories.”1 The unnamed author introduced a new cometary model. A comet tail was not a streamer of gas, trailing the head like a plume of smoke flowing downwind from a campfire. In fact, it was an optical phenomenon, a beam of light. The comet’s head acted as a giant magnifying glass, gathering sunlight and focusing it into a concentrated ray. What did this mean for the earth? “When Halley’s Comet passes between the earth and sun on May 18–20, the earth will merely be bathed in an extra flood of light. If the passage occurs in the day and the sky be clear, we shall have a hot, brilliant day. If at night, it will be bright, as if the moon, at that time just past first quarter were at its fullest and brightest and shining on freshly fallen snow.”2 Nothing to worry about then. No poisonous gases seeping into the atmosphere to slay the human race; no horrific asphyxiation in our final moments. Passage through Halley’s tail would offer only an extra burst of clean white light. “We are not afraid,” continued the author, “of brilliant moonlight.”3 The amount of light directed toward the earth during the comet’s pass would be roughly the same. On the other hand, if the comet was perfectly positioned in front of the sun as the earth moved through the point where the light rays focused, the comet would direct an intense, scorching burst of solar energy at the planet as it passed. “This can be understood by putting some burnable object in sunlight and placing a magnifying glass between it and the sun.”4 Focused sunlight, as all schoolchildren know, will ignite objects placed beneath the glass. It took little imagination to extend that analogy to space. What if the comet concentrated the sun’s energy into a blinding ray of light that burned a path across the earth’s surface? This was unlikely. “It would take a comet over a million miles in diameter, passing between the earth and sun much nearer than any comet has, to affect the earth by focused light.” The Collier’s author offered no support for these parameters. Nor did he offer any evidence to substantiate his estimate of the earth’s risk: “The chance of any comet passing the earth so its rays will be focused on the earth is about one in a billion.”5 Moreover, according to his calculations, even if a death 180

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ray struck the earth, it was only likely to scorch the planet’s Southern Hemisphere. That was a relief. “To save us worry,” wrote an editor for the Syracuse Post-Standard, “the Collier’s astronomer figures that this heavenly burning glass would focus the sun’s rays on Southern Mexico and India, Hawaii and Luzon. We prefer to have an experiment in earth scorching done to these parts rather than to ours.”6 The Collier’s story offered a fresh concern to worry readers. If the tail gases didn’t asphyxiate all life on the planet or ignite the atmosphere, a death ray of focused sunlight might burn a flaming path across the earth’s surface, carbonizing cities and turning countries into smoking ruins. Although Collier’s did not identify the story’s author, New York’s Edwin Naulty was the likely source. Naulty, an amateur astronomer, was the leading proponent of the focused light theory. In the weeks before the comet’s arrival, Naulty, who owned a private observatory, published a scientific paper entitled Comet, a Huge Lens; Its Tail, a Great Cone of Focused Sunlight, which was reprinted in several national newspapers. Naulty claimed to have spent twenty years pondering solar energy and “the causes and effects of comets and of terrestrial magnetism.”7 Although he believed that there would be no direct danger of the earth “bumping” the comet, the indirect effects of the comet’s passage were likely to be significant. Unfortunately, most people failed to understand the true nature of the danger that faced the planet. They worried about a collision with the comet, or the possibility that tail gas might poison the atmosphere. These scenarios were fantasies; they would not happen. A comet, claimed Naulty, was insubstantial. It lacked a significant physical presence to affect the earth. Its nucleus was a dense pocket of gas called a “comasphere.” The comasphere acted as a lens, bending and focusing solar energy into a concentrated beam of light—the tail. It was this light-gathering ability—not tail gas or the possibility of a collision— that made a comet dangerous. The earth would be on the receiving end of a vast amount of power when Halley’s Comet passed across the face of the sun. 181

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The sun flung an incredible amount of power at the earth, but the planet’s thick atmosphere shielded its inhabitants from the adverse effects of this energy stream. That would change when the earth passed through the comet’s tail, facing a blast of solar radiation many times greater than normally experienced. “By its effect in deflecting solar force to the earth, and particularly at the time when the earth passes through the greatest condensation of solar force in the so-called ‘tail’ of the comet, the comet has already and will again affect the earth,” wrote Naulty.8 One need look no further than the beginning of the year, continued Naulty, to find evidence that substantiated his theory. When Comet A1910 flew past the earth, a concentrated burst of solar energy disrupted the planet’s climate, producing heavy downpours in France and Central America, snowstorms in Iceland, freezing weather in Mexico, and unprecedented storms in the South Pacific. Plot these weather anomalies on a world map, and the disturbances would “be seen to extend in a belt, or zone, running from southwest to northeast. This belt was crossed in January, 1910, by another belt running up though Africa, crossing France, the British Isles, Iceland, Greenland, British North America, Alaska, the Pacific Ocean to south of Australia.”9 When the paths of Comet A1910 and Halley’s Comet were superimposed over the map, claimed Naulty, it become evident that these zones of weather disturbances correlated with the comet courses. Comet energy altered more than the weather, suggested Naulty. It also triggered earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and underground mine explosions. The geological upheavals were “the effort of the mass of the earth to adjust its coherency to the application of additional solar force deflected by the comets.”10 The energy ray could penetrate the earth and touch off explosions in volatile pockets of gas, just as X-rays lance through the body. This had been observed in the aftermath of Comet A1910, with mine disasters in Kentucky and Colorado. Naturally, wrote Naulty, it was impossible to give a full accounting of the phenomenon of these solar rays in a popular publication, but there was no doubt that as Halley’s Comet approached, the planet would experience extreme weather events, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. As the earth passed through the concentrated energy of the tail, this fire 182

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hose of solar radiation would buffet the planet. “It is not in the regular province of the astronomer to forecast comets [weather], but we shall see the greatest flood in the Mississippi valley since that of 1882, a great comet year, and before Halley’s Comet has passed out into space again, we are certain to be subjected to severe earthquakes, and to great variations of weather in short periods, such as those of the last fortnight in April.”11

d

Was Naulty correct? Was the tail a deadly beam of concentrated sunlight? Astronomers were divided over the question. Although most believed that the tail was a gas plume emitted by the comet’s head, others entertained alternate explanations. Camille Flammarion, most notably, had advanced his own conjecture about the tail. He didn’t support the focused light model, but that didn’t mean that the tail wasn’t an optical phenomenon. Perhaps, suggested the astronomer, the tail was a disruption of space. A comet’s tail could be the interstellar equivalent of the wake that unfurls behind a steamship, suggested Flammarion. A ship’s movement through the ocean displaces and roils the water, leaving a visible sign of its passage. What if a similar phenomenon occurred in outer space? Perhaps the comet’s “tail” was only disruption produced by the comet’s flight. The nucleus’s motion stirred up the ether, which filled the void between planets. The tail was a wake, “produced by the flight through the ether.”12 Flammarion’s theory offered another reason for the earth’s inhabitants to relax. The earth traveled through this ether, and although the comet’s passage might briefly make that gaseous substance visible, it would be of no more consequence than a ship’s wake washing against a jetty’s pilings. A tail that was nothing more than an optical phenomenon posed no danger to the earth. On the other hand, wrote Flammarion, the belief that the tail was a beam of sunlight concentrated through the “lens” of the nucleus was surely wrong. Naulty’s idea, recently proposed by Professor Horatio Bentavol in a lecture in Madrid, had been raised and debunked many times over the years. Decades of observation demonstrated that their 183

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tails were not “rectilinear,” streaming back from the head in a straight line. Comets usually displayed curved tails—bent like a scimitar—or other odd shapes. “The [Roman] historian Pliny,” wrote Flammarion, “summarizing the impressions of his contemporaries, distinguished 12 kinds of comets; there were the disk, the barrel, the mane, the beard, the javelin, the horn, the monsters, etc. In fact, some fade away in the shape of a fan, while others recurve toward their extremity like the blade of a yatagan, without counting those that are divided into several branches.”13 Light, on the other hand, traveled in a straight line. If a comet’s tail was nothing more than a focused beam of light, then that tail should flow back in a rigidly straight line. The startling variety of tail shapes clearly debunked Naulty’s theory. And even if the tail’s appearance wasn’t enough to discount the theory, it was difficult to imagine how a comet’s head, which was most likely composed of gas and solid bodies like meteors, could travel through space maintaining the curved lens shape needed to focus light. Naulty’s theory stumbled at the bar of observation. “These hypotheses do not give us the key of the cometary enigma,” concluded Flammarion.14 Nevertheless, those interested in solving the mystery of the comet tail should not despair: the approaching comet offered astronomers an excellent opportunity to probe the visitor’s secrets; perhaps someone would finally settle the matter. “Flammarion,” wrote Canada’s Windsor Star, “the French astronomer, who at the outset made such alarming predictions as to the effect of the comet’s ‘poisonous’ tail is now the most moderate of them all. At first he said that if the earth passed through the tail all life might be extinguished in a wink, but now he leaves that unpleasant speculation to others and says that the tail is a mere ‘optical phenomenon’ produced by the flight through ether, similar to the wake of a ship. Flammarion seems to be coming round to some sort of rational view.”15 Despite Canadian approval, the newspapers south of the border had no intention of allowing Flammarion to wiggle off the hook. He was still the instigator in chief, stirring fear and spreading panic. American journalists refused to unharness him from the terrifying cyanogen extermination theory. 184

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d

While Naulty bandied his solar rays and Flammarion contemplated the swirling vortices of displaced ether, international observatories issued updated observations of the comet’s tail. Maurice Hamy, a Parisian astronomer, reported that the tail grew from five to ten degrees in length over a period of three days. More alarming, however, was the report from the Dijon Observatory. Professor Henri-Alexandre Delandres announced that not only had the tail increased in size, but spectrographic analysis detected a fresh resurgence of cyanogen in the plume.16 Two months earlier, the cyanogen gas appeared to have vanished from the tail. In March, Professor Harold Jacoby of Columbia University reported that the tail was cyanogen-free. Although cyanogen could be detected in the bands of gas that encircled the comet’s nucleus, “there is no sign of cyanogen gas in the tail of the comet,” reported Jacoby. “And I do not think there is any cause for fear of it.”17 Dr. W. C. Brown, chief chemist of the National Carbon Company, seconded Jacoby’s observations: “Cyanogen gas may be at the head of the comet, but I doubt if it is in the tail.”18 Other astronomers confirmed the disappearance of the gas in the tail, and for a brief period, the world had one less thing to worry about. But now, as the early days of May ticked past, the deadly gas had reappeared. Professor Deslandres, in releasing this worrisome update, said, “the hypothesis that the gas is liable to affect the terrestrial atmosphere would not be at all absurd.”19 If that wasn’t bad enough, continued the story, unidentified astronomers also revealed that the comet had departed from its projected orbit. Perhaps rather than slipping past the earth, the comet might strike the planet. “Surprises May Follow,” warned the frontpage headline.20

d

Even if the comet’s tail did contain cyanogen gas, was it a problem for humans? California chemist Edwin Booth had shocked the country earlier in the year with his graphic description of the gas’s toxic properties, but Horace Mack, a resident of Spokane, Washington, was dubious. The gas would not hurt you unless you ingested it, he asserted. Mack, who 185

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claimed to have once worked in a New York chemistry lab, had firsthand experience with cyanogen. He allegedly told a reporter that while working in the laboratory, he had accidentally inhaled some of the gas. He immediately collapsed and, “though fully conscious, was unable to move or speak for more than two weeks.”21 The stupor was so complete that a coroner examined him, certified his death, and handed the unresponsive Mack over to an undertaker for burial. Fortunately, one of Mack’s colleagues intervened. The coworker declared that cyanogen had tipped the hapless man into a state of “suspended animation.” After a vigorous debate with the doctors, the chemist was allowed to retain possession of Mack’s body and “following several experiments Mr. Mack was revived and restored, 15 days later. He is in good health today.”22 This story was completely absurd. Neither cyanogen gas nor any substance known to modern science produces the state of suspended animation Mack described. Nevertheless, the Associated Press distributed the story to newspapers across the country. In a pattern that was becoming suspiciously common, none of the Spokane newspapers picked up this news item or, indeed, even appeared to know that a man who had endured such a tremendous near-death experience lived in the city. Mr. Mack is not listed in the Spokane City Directory for 1910 nor does his name appear in the 1910 census. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, once again, the Associated Press had fabricated an article to entertain newspaper readers.

d

The illusory Mr. Mack was not the only scientist who hoped to calm national anxiety. In response to the renewed warnings of cyanogen coming from France, Professor Samuel Mitchell, an astronomer at Columbia University, decided to conduct an experiment that would dispel popular concerns about the gas. According to the newspapers, Mitchell recruited a group of undergraduate students—the most expendable population at any university—and marched them into Columbia’s chemistry labs. He filled the laboratory’s ventilation hoods, which hung over the individual worksta186

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tions, with increasing concentrations of cyanogen gas. “Students were placed first in one hood and then in others in which the amount of cyanogen was increased.”23 Mitchell monitored the effects of the toxic gas on his student guinea pigs. “It was found that the gas would have to be very dense to wipe out life,” reported the newspapers. The tests merely caused “temporary collapse or severe headaches . . . however, if the vapor suddenly increased to a certain density, death would be almost instantaneous.”24

d Professor Mitchell’s attempt to reduce national concerns about cyanogen gas poisoning failed miserably. As the comet approached, apprehensive people prepared for the earth’s brush with the tail. John Marlow, a farmer from Council Bluffs, Iowa, dug a comet shelter. Alarmed by the newspaper reports, Marlow excavated an underground bunker large enough to shield his family, “two horses, two cows, a dog, a cat, and a number of chickens.”25 Marlow planned to seal the cave’s mouth with an airtight door to keep the comet gases out. Stephen Harter of Pasadena, California, was doing the same. His backyard cave, according to a United Press syndicated story, was “stocked with canned goods and other provisions and provided with a system of ventilators which are controlled with strings leading to an inner chamber where he will hide when the heavenly wanderer comes.”26 Harter was convinced that the cyanogen gas would destroy all life and shrivel the vegetation. “He does not propose to be snuffed out, and each night he retires in a bed in the inner chamber.”27 Lacking the heart of a Noah, Harter refused to offer shelter to anyone else. His cave’s air supply would only support one person, and Harter intended to survive the comet’s passage.

d

Hucksters exploited the growing unease. In Haiti, an “old voodoo doctor” amassed a fortune selling “comet pills,”28 expensive tablets guaranteed to ward off the ill effects of cyanogen gas. Sailors aboard the liner Allegheny, 187

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which had just completed a Port au Prince to New York cruise, reported that Haitians were standing in long lines outside the medicine man’s hut in order to procure a share of the nostrum. “The prescription is one pill for every hour up to the time the comet begins to recede from the earth, but many of the patients are making doubly sure by taking one pill every half hour.”29 Sales were so brisk that the comet doctor—who guarded his secret anti-cyanogen formula—was “growing rich faster than Col. Mulberry Sellers in his wildest dreams.”30 Although the Haitian medicine man prospered, two entrepreneurs in Galveston, Texas, ran afoul of the law. Police officers arrested a pair of con men who were selling “comet pills and mouth inhalers to superstitious negroes and several white people” in southern Texas.31 Chemical analysis revealed that the pills consisted of sugar and quinine, and their “inhalers”—intended to filter cyanogen from the air—were crafted of woven grass. Justice was hindered when, after detaining the grifters, the police failed to find witnesses to testify against them. Their customers “pleaded they had not been swindled, that the time for the world to be destroyed had now arrived and that to punish these men would surely bring dire results to any negro who would appear against them.”32 The police booked the two men, who had come south from Ohio, on a charge of vagrancy. It was unlikely, announced the officers, that these men were working alone.

d

Other thieves were slightly more respectable. C. B. Green, a resident of Los Angeles, opened an insurance agency. When news of the comet first appeared in the papers, Green began selling comet insurance policies that promised a cash payment of $500 “to the widow or children of the victim in case death is met through the comet striking the earth.”33 Policyholders paid 25 cents a week to insure their lives. Although a sensible person might question the value of a policy that paid off only in the event of a world-destroying cataclysm, business was brisk. The first day Green offered his terms, thirty people signed up. As the comet approached, his client list grew, and by mid-May he was collecting a quarter each week from more than fifty people. 188

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Green told the newspapers that he had nothing to lose. If the comet struck the earth, then he would die alongside everyone else. A dead man couldn’t pay claims. “Of course I am honest, and will promptly pay all claims if someone else gets killed and I don’t.”34 Green further hedged his bets by stipulating that death must be the direct result of a cometary impact. Death from fright or terror were excluded conditions. Only a direct comet strike or the asphyxiating effects of tail gas would pay. Success inspired imitators. George Washington, a resident of Dallas, Texas, adopted the idea and preyed on residents of his city. Premium sales were so brisk, he reported, that he was forced to advertise for an assistant to help him collect the weekly payments.35 In Washington, DC, an enterprising young man sold comet insurance on the steps of the Capitol. Able to tap a more affluent clientele, he set his premiums at $1 per week.36

d

New York astrologers were also busy exploiting the gullible. Police officers arrested several mediums for peddling homemade amulets that would protect purchasers from any stray cyanogen gas that might infiltrate the city. Those who were impervious to the astrologer’s charms might have been seduced by the promise of applied chemistry. New York saloon keepers announced that alcohol was an antidote to cyanogen. The deadly gas, asserted the barmen, was soluble in whiskey and water—it would dissolve harmlessly upon entering a scotch-soaked bloodstream. The safest place to ride out the evening of May 18 was inside your neighborhood tavern with a line of tumblers arrayed on the bar in front of you. “Just keep drinkin’ highballs with plain water, kid,” said local bartender Tom Sharkey. Drink “from sunset till sunrise and there’s nothin’ to it. About 11:20 P.M., when this show starts, I’ll present you with a last year’s bird nest from me own place at Sheepshead Bay, if you care whether the comet hits us or not.”37 For those who wanted entertainment while they drank, an unidentified New York theater manager announced that he intended to adopt the ideas of France’s Edward Guillaume and displace the insidious gas 189

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with positive pressure. This clever East Side promoter intended to pipe “pure oxygen” into his theater through the “cold air pipes.”38 The elevated pressure inside the theater would prevent cyanogen from seeping in. The audience would enjoy the show in pressurized comfort, completely free from concern about the cyanogen poisoning the city outside the theater’s walls. Should the worst happen, patrons would emerge, blinking but well-entertained, into the morning of a post-cyanogen deathscape. Although the story gained national attention, spread by papers across the country, it had the flimsy feeling of a hoax. Neither the name of the promoter nor the theater he represented appeared in the articles about the plan. If the oxygenated theater existed, how were people to find it? It was probably better if they didn’t. In elevated concentrations oxygen is a deadly poison that causes hyperoxia, a condition that damages the nervous system, lungs, and eyes. Although the theater manager claimed that he would have medical personnel standing by to monitor the health of his patrons, a person seated in the balcony might have had a better chance of survival outside in the cyanogen.

d

If you believed Edward Naulty, there was no reason to fear the imaginary cyanogen gas. He remained convinced that the comet’s passage would prove his cometary lens theory. “There is only one danger to the earth from the passage of a comet,” he wrote, “and that is the disturbing influence of the comet on solar energy radiating from the sun. This will and is causing earthquakes, explosions in mines, explosions of vapors, chemicals and powder, and it is causing the unusual weather and it will cause more.”39 Nevertheless, continued Naulty, the earth was in no great danger. It had suffered these kinds of blows from other passing comets and would weather Halley’s storm as well. “No one need make his will, nor dig a comet cellar, nor take any precautions. If anything ever happens it will be over before we even realize it. It will not be slow and lingering. One titanic flash and the end will come.”40 But not next week. “The earth is still a very charming and habitable world and humanity has not yet reached its limit of development. It is not likely that the Supreme Intelligence, whom we seem to have forgotten, 190

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is going to destroy the earth next week, nor permit the reflected sunlight in a comet’s tail to do it.”41 Naulty’s argument echoed the claims of biblical prophets Alexander and Evans, who, a month earlier, had suggested that God was so pleased with human progress that he couldn’t bear to end his experiment on planet Earth before it reached its technological apex. Trust God: no comet would destroy his favorite creation.

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Chapter Fifteen

Hysteria’s High-Water Mark

Hold tight to a lamp post or something after dinner to-night as you begin to go through the tail of Halley’s Comet at the speed of about 2,580 miles per minute. —Sun (New York), May 18, 1910 As the final days ticked off the calendar and the comet grew brighter in the eastern morning sky, terror tapped the shoulders of the psychologically troubled. The residents of San Bernardino, California, were shocked when, during the second week of May, a party of miners carried Paul Hammerton into town. The raving man’s left palm was mangled, pierced in imitation of Christ’s stigmata. The miners found Hammerton at the Discovery gold mine in Coyote Hills. He had hammered an iron spike through the fleshy meat of his hand, into the thick wood timber of a mine hoist. With one arm secured, like a butterfly pinned to a collecting board, he waited for death beneath the inexorable sun. It was a failed attempt at self-crucifixion. Hammerton worked as a shepherd during the California winter. Like a biblical character, he spent his nights in open fields, tending his sheep and studying the stars. The unexpected arrival of Comet A1910 in January terrified him; he became obsessed with comets. After much deliberation, he decided that the comet was a herald—an astronomical John the Baptist—sent to warn Earth’s people of an imminent disaster. 193

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The January comet foreshadowed the May arrival of Halley’s Comet, which would destroy the earth. Hammerton’s behavior grew erratic. He drove his sheep into a mine, sending several plunging down an open shaft. Apparently, he hoped to spare his companions a more horrific comet death. Shortly after losing his job, he was employed as the night watchman at the Discovery gold mine. Again left alone with his madness and the brightening Halley’s Comet, his fear crystallized. Believing that God demanded a human sacrifice, a savior to bear the sins of the world, he attempted to emulate Christ’s crucifixion. Although he succeeded in driving one spike through his hand, he lacked the third arm required to finish the job. Nevertheless, it was almost enough. Another few hours beneath the hot sun and his sacrifice would have been complete. The miners, when they found him, knocked the spike out of his hand. Although dehydrated and weakened, he fought his rescuers, demanding that they leave him to die. He was convinced that the slow agony that he had chosen was far better than the death stalking the earth. The miners carried him into San Bernardino. The local doctors doubted that he would survive his ordeal. It was a stunning story, a perfect example of the terror simmering beneath the collective psyche of the American people. If a man could be driven to such madness by the oncoming comet, what might others do before the fated night? The Associated Press, the source of the Hammerton story, telegraphed the news of the self-crucified shepherd across the country. More than sixty-four newspapers from the Los Angeles Times to the Baltimore Sun titillated readers with the shocking account of Paul Hammerton. Unfortunately, distribution does not correlate with reliability. Readers interested in learning more about poor deranged Paul Hammerton quickly find the trail vanishing among the desert chaparral. What happened to him? Did he survive the experience? Was he committed to an insane asylum? Did he recover and return to his sheep after the comet passed? These questions elude answers; although the story was widely distributed, none of the editors who printed it ever ran a follow-up. The Associated Press hinted that Hammerton was in bad shape and unlikely 194

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to live, but the state of California did not issue a death certificate for him. In fact, California’s bureaucracy didn’t seem to know anything about the shepherd. His name doesn’t appear in state records or the national census. As far as the government was concerned, Hammerton didn’t exist. Of course, official silence proves nothing; records were poorly kept, incomplete, and frequently lost. Moreover, it is possible that Hammerton’s lifestyle—a transient who worked in remote locations— shielded him from official attention. Hammerton may have been one of the anonymous men who built the West, unremarked, unnoticed, and unrecorded. Nevertheless, one wonders how he protected his obscurity after becoming a national celebrity. Equally troubling: how did the local newspaper reporters miss such a sensational story? More than sixty-four national newspapers ran the story—many placed it on their front page—yet the story was overlooked in San Bernardino, the town to which the unhinged Hammerton was allegedly brought after the desert miners found him. The San Bernardino County Sun, a newspaper that printed ten to twelve pages of city and regional news every day, wrote nothing about this story. There was no mention of Paul Hammerton or even of a self-crucified shepherd. The Sun covered comet sightings, comet parties, and the sermons of local ministers (“Will the World Ever End in Comet Fire?”). It documented the growing national unease about the approaching interstellar visitor. However, when it came to one of the biggest and strangest comet stories of them all—a story that took place in its own town—the newspaper was mysteriously silent. If Paul Hammerton attempted to crucify himself at a gold mine outside of San Bernardino, if he was carried into town for medical care, if his story was so shocking that it vaulted to the front pages of newspapers across the country, how was it possible that the local paper wrote nothing about it? The most probable explanation—which accounts for Hammerton’s absence from state records, the lack of follow-up stories about his condition, and the fact that the Sun failed to mention Hammerton—is that the story was a hoax. It was a slow news day, so an Associated Press writer stitched together a story that was guaranteed to liven things up. Editors across 195

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the country happily printed the story. The newspapers that crucified Camille Flammarion’s reputation—repeatedly misrepresenting his positions—did the same to Paul Hammerton. Sensational stories sold newspapers; they kept the kettle of public attention simmering on the stove.

d

In the final days before the comet arrived, newspapers looked for fresh ways to capture reader attention. Although mainstream scientists continued to assert that the comet offered no danger to the earth, many papers claimed that there was dissension among the experts; the world’s finest minds disagreed about the earth’s fate. The Los Angeles Times printed a satirical article that took a jab at the scientific community. The paper ran an “interview” with the ghost of deceased aviation pioneer Darius Green. The caustic spirit lampooned the scientific discord: “[Man] has solved the mystery of the heavens until it is possible for 200 different scientists to give 200 different descriptions of Halley’s Comet and each be able to prove absolutely that he’s right and all others are wrong.”1 The Belvidere Daily Republican in Illinois also skewered the absence of scientific unity: “The exhaustive researches of the various scientists in relation to Halley’s Comet appear to have established the following as facts. The comet’s tail will envelop the earth. The comet’s tail will not envelop the earth. The comet’s tail is filled with cyanogen gas. The comet’s tail is not filled with cyanogen gas. The comet causes earthquakes. The comet does not cause earthquakes.”2 The list of contrary opinions continued. Like a modern Peter Abelard, the article’s writer paired the opposing positions that had appeared in the national newspapers. With less than a week before the actual event, if the reporters were to be believed, the world’s astronomers found little to agree about. In fact, the scientific opinion was far more unified than the media suggested. Nearly every serious scientist agreed on the central point—the comet’s tail would not harm the earth. Beyond that point there was room

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for debate and conjecture. Then, as now, the media interpreted the normal working of the scientific method as a sign of discord among the sages.

d

Reporters and editors traffic in certainties; the modern sound bite or short front page article has no room for nuance or probability. Give the audience the “facts” and keep moving before their attention flags. Science is a reflective discipline, one that is inimical to certainty. The scientific method rests upon the observation and collection of data. As information arrives, the scientist forms a hypothesis to explain the data. This is followed by a period of testing that either affirms or refutes the hypothesis. An idea that stands the test of time—one that survives the challenge of new information or different ways of understanding the natural world—is added to the canon of knowledge. But every scientist knows that even the most widely accepted ideas may someday be overturned. Scientific “certainty” doesn’t exist. Ideas are always open to challenge and revision. Science advances incrementally, constructing knowledge through the addition of well-tested bricks of data. The media, then and now, covers the hypotheses. In its relentless hunger for fresh stories, newspapers will print the results of a new study or a novel scientific idea as if it was established fact. “Butter is bad for the heart!” Six months later, a new study offers conflicting information: “Butter lubricates the heart; eat a cube of butter each day.” The hypothesis is revised until the next piece of information arrives: “Butter kills.” This process, from a scientific perspective, is how the scientific method is supposed to work. Ideas are revised as new data emerges. However, for the average consumer of news, it appears that scientists are unable to agree upon anything; they are always changing their minds. Why should we trust scientists when they warn about the dangers of global warming, advise people to get vaccinated during a pandemic, or tout the benefits of butter? Won’t they say something completely different in six months? The way the media covers scientific progress breeds distrust in the minds of the consumer. This is unjustified. We need only look at the scientific and technological advances of the past century to realize that

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the scientific method works. There is still much to be learned, but science offers the best attested path forward. In 1910, scientists were still working to understand the nature of comets. In the absence of established knowledge, many hypotheses had been proposed to explain the available data. A majority of astronomers, including Mitchell of Columbia University and Campbell of the Lick Observatory, believed that the tail was gaseous, produced in some unexplained manner by the head. Camille Flammarion’s articles suggest that he also endorsed the gaseous tail model, although he had recently advanced the idea that the tail might be disturbed ether. Edwin Naulty and a handful of others argued that the tail was a focused beam of light. Varied hypotheses are the strength of the scientific method. The astronomers had cast their nets wide, and as new information arrived, disproved hypotheses would fall until only one remained. The newspapers portrayed the ongoing discussion as evidence of ignorance or confusion: the scientists couldn’t agree, which meant that their forecasts about what was coming were no more likely than the view proffered by a street preacher shouting about Armageddon. Clearly the sages were in complete disarray, clucked the reporters. They couldn’t even arrive at a consensus about what humans might see when the earth passed through the tail. “It is very probable,” stated Professor Mitchell, “that nothing unusual will be observed when we pass through the tail.”3 Professor Barnard of Yerkes Observatory concurred: “I don’t expect that we take will know that we are in it.”4 On the other hand, some astronomers expected that the event might offer a little drama. Professor Wilson of Harvard anticipated a darkening of the sky as the earth passed through the tail; Professor McHugh thought that interactions between the planet’s upper atmospheric gases and the comet’s tail might produce small explosions; Professor Frost of Yerkes believed that observers might witness a fiery display similar to the aurora borealis in the northern latitudes. That light could be punctuated by a stream of meteors knocked loose from the comet’s head, predicted Professor Hall of the Naval Observatory, which might also contribute to the spectacle.5 198

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Of course the meteor storm could intensify and wreak significant damage. Professor Ricco of Italy’s Catania Observatory expected a stone hailstorm. “There might be a heavy fall of stones, which would injure anyone who was hit, and cause serious damage to a city, but it should be remembered that man occupies only one-fourth of the globe, so that the chances of people being struck by an aerolite are very slight.”6 Far more likely was the possibility that the earth would be sprinkled with comet dust. Professor Hale, director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, anticipated telegraphic disruptions and “a rain of fine dust, resembling volcano dust.”7 Members of the US Geological Survey were busily setting traps on the slopes of Mount Wilson, hoping to capture the comet dust as the tail swished across the face of the earth.8 Not only was it unclear what effect the tail would have on the planet, the pro-gaseous school could not even agree on the size of the plume trailing the comet. Astronomers in Hawaii, who reported clear skies and excellent viewing conditions, offered final measurements of the tail: it stretched twenty million miles and was two million miles in diameter at the point where the earth would enter. Since the comet’s nucleus was only fifteen million miles away, the tail would extend five million miles past the planet’s orbit. It was inevitable that the tail would brush the earth. Observers at California’s Lick Observatory disagreed. Their measurements suggested the tail was only a million miles across at earth’s projected point of entry. This was a critical difference, one that determined how long the planet would be immersed in the tail’s gas. If the Lick astronomers were right, then the planet would traverse the tail in six hours; if Honolulu was correct, that would double. Once again, claimed the newspapers, scientific discord raged: “[The planet] will stay there about six hours, some astronomers say. Others are inclined to believe that the passage will take less than an hour, while others say that it will take twelve hours to pass through.”9 Although newspapers emphasized the discrepancies, every serious scientist agreed that the tail would not harm the earth. Ideas differed about what observers might see, but all agreed that the comet’s close pass offered a magnificent opportunity to learn more about these celestial 199

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visitors. Ultimately, the experience would be fabulous. Professor Harold Jacoby of Columbia University spoke for the entire astronomical community when he asserted: “Personally I am of the opinion that all that has been said and written about flying aerolites and other celestial objects is almost silly. We should all do better, I think, to interest ourselves in the beauty of the phenomenon. By next Saturday evening the sky, especially during the first hour after sundown, should be a thing of wondrous beauty. By that time the comet, with its brilliant tail, should be easily seen with the naked eye.”10

d

Edwin Naulty, purveyor of the most terrifying tail theory, received a great deal of coverage during the final week. He preached his focused light theory to any reporter who would listen and new data appeared only to strengthen his claims. There were, for instance, the wildly varying reports about the presence or absence of cyanogen in the comet’s tail. French astronomers announced that they had detected the deadly gas; American astronomers maintained that the tail contained no signs of cyanogen gas. Who was right? This discrepancy suggested that one group of astronomers misapplied spectrography or, more discouraging, that the spectrographic analysis of celestial objects could not be trusted. Although either alternative was possible, Naulty argued that his theory offered a better explanation of the results. As the comet’s gaseous lens shifted in space, the projected light beam glanced side to side, striking and illuminating interstellar pockets of gas. The solar beam had been pointing at a cyanogen-rich area of space when Professor Deslandres had taken his readings, but it had shifted to an area of space that was free of cyanogen by the time the Americans took their measurements. Further confirmation of Naulty’s theory was found in the unusual ongoing planetary disruptions. As he had predicted, the focused solar energy appeared to be affecting the planet. A massive earthquake struck Costa Rica the first week of May, spreading destruction across the country. Cartago, Paraiso, and Oshomore were leveled; the death toll exceeded 2,500. The corpses overwhelmed the undertaking industry. 200

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Unable to offer proper burials, the government decided to inter the victims in mass graves, overriding the objections of relatives. Like Naulty, many of the island’s residents believed that the approaching comet had caused the disaster. “The population is in a state of utter demoralization. The more ignorant have erected altars and are offering up sacrifices to unknown gods, asking protection against Halley’s comet, which they blame for the quake.”11 The comet’s effect was not limited to Central America. Villagers in Moutiers, France, were terrified when tremors rattled their small hamlet. Earthquakes shook buildings in Vienna, panicking the residents. “The local population,” wrote the London Times, “is convinced that the earthquake and the abnormal weather of the present spring stand in some mysterious relationship to Halley’s Comet. After weeks of almost constant rain and cold winds the temperature rose yesterday to summer level. The earthquake was immediately preceded by a violent tempest.”12 A week after the Costa Rica earthquake, an aftershock struck the country, adding to the destruction. Many buildings that had survived the first quake surrendered and collapsed, killing more residents of the country. California trembled in sympathetic vibration as a series of shocks tracked north along the San Andreas fault to San Francisco. Although damage was light, the tremors registered on a distant seismograph in Seattle.13 If the uptick in earthquakes was insufficient to persuade the skeptics, what about the return of violent, unseasonable weather? Spring’s arrival in the Northern Hemisphere brought tempestuous weather that ravaged crops and upset customary patterns. Both Naulty and weather prophet Irl Hicks, who had forecast widespread weather disruptions, got very lucky. France appeared ready to repeat the flooding attributed to Comet A1910. In the final days before tail transit, torrential rains and savage gales lashed the country. “Reports of disasters to the fishing fleets continue to come in from all points.”14 Rivers were climbing back toward flood stage and the “peasants and residents of the provincial towns attribute the disaster to Halley’s Comet and are awaiting in mortal fear May 19, the date on which it is announced the comet will meet the earth.”15 201

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In the United States the weather also took a turn for the strange. New York enjoyed a fine afternoon on May 17. The sun warmed the stones of the great city, and the sky was “crystal clear.” No cloud marred the faultless blue sky. Evening arrived. The moon rose, and as it began to climb away from the horizon, someone noticed something strange: our nearest neighbor was encircled by a ring of cloud. “What could that mean? People who had begun to feel something like reassurance, and to joke about the comet, got just a bit uneasy again when they saw the moon last night.”16 Next, out of a clear sky, clouds appeared, and by morning, a heavy rain washed the city. “That could be due to nothing else than the comet’s influence, that sudden change in the weather,” claimed some of the city’s residents.17 James Scarr, a New York meteorologist, grew tired of fielding comet queries. When a Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter called to ask if the comet was altering the city’s weather, Scarr replied, “Sure! You can never tell what one of these comets will do. It’s responsible for the rain here all right. It’s responsible for the fine weather they’re having in the Rocky Mountain district at the present moment also. It’s responsible for the rain in the lake region, and dry weather in the New England district. The funny thing about it is that it’s responsible for so many sorts of weather in so many different places at the same time.” “Are you joshing, Mr. Scarr?” asked the reporter. “Yes—weren’t you?” The reporter indignantly reported the latest thinking of Edwin Naulty and Irl Hicks. Scarr chuckled and replied, “You go ahead and write what you want to. I don’t want to spoil your story for you. There’s absolutely nothing in the story of the comet causing this rain; but I don’t care to be a spoil-sport. We only have a comet like this every seventy-five years and it would be a shame if we couldn’t make it do a few stunts, wouldn’t it now?” With a final derisive laugh, Scarr hung up the phone and returned to his weather charts.18 How could he take this so lightly? wondered the reporter. Didn’t the skeptical weatherman know that on the previous day snow had fallen in Rome, panicking the local population?19 Snow was extremely rare in the Eternal City, but that degree of unlikeliness was 202

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magnified by the time of year. Snow—in May! Surely some external force was altering the world’s weather patterns. Rome’s residents were convinced that the strange snowfall signified global destruction. “The more ignorant members of the population of the Eternal City are so terrified by the approach of the comet that they refuse to go to bed, and Cardinal Rampola has ordered that St. Peter’s remain open all night.”20 Evidence of the comet’s influence accumulated. In New Orleans, the sun appeared with a “multicolored circle” around it. The frightening aberration panicked the local African American workers in the fields of Mississippi and Louisiana, according to the Buffalo Morning Express. They abandoned their labor, fell to their knees, and began crying and praying.21 If these meteorological aberrations were unconvincing, what about the rapidly warming oceans? Swimmers in the water off Coney Island reported that the sea was unseasonably warm. According to C. C. Overton, a regular bather, the water had attained a summer temperature and possessed “a slight taste of sulphur.”22 Despite the balmy conditions, Overton thought that there were fewer swimmers than normal; people were avoiding the beach out of fear of the comet. Anecdotal evidence suggested that Naulty was right: the comet was focusing the sun’s ferocious energy on the planet, disrupting the natural order. Even if most scientists remained unconvinced, the newspapers happily covered the natural disasters and unseasonable weather attributed to the comet. Surely it could only get worse.

d

Astronomers agreed that the earth would enter the comet’s tail—or fly into a beam of concentrated solar energy—at 8:00 p.m. New York time on the evening of May 18. First contact between earth and the tail would occur over the Pacific Ocean. Two minutes later, the tail would sweep across New York. City residents, screened by the intervening planet, would be unable to see the comet. “If any danger attends the first collision there will be ample time to get telegraphic news that will give us a minute’s warning, provided, of course, the telegraphic facilities are not disturbed,” wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.23 203

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The final-day front pages were divided between the scientific assessments of what the earth faced in the coming night and a record of the hysteria sweeping the globe. Scientific eagerness collided with apprehension. “The persons about town who were given to expressions of happiness over the comet’s visit,” wrote the New York Sun, “were astronomers, the hotel keepers in the Tenderloin, who are making extra preparations to entertain comet parties at dinner and supper tonight; the sidewalk ‘astronomers’ with sad telescopes, who are showing people the sky whether the comet is in sight or not, and the East Side fortune tellers, ‘astrologists,’ mind readers, palmists and fortune tellers in general.”24 “Professor” Abe Hochman, a New York astrologer who had adopted his academic title to buttress his credibility, claimed that he had received more than two thousand letters from anxious clients since the newspapers had launched their comet coverage. Most of the frightened inquiries, reported Hochman, came from rural areas, regions that contained a disproportionate number of gullible people. The brisk business inspired Hochman to install a new sign outside his office depicting the professor “gazing heavenward toward an object with pink tentacles that is either Halley’s Comet or a soft shell crab.”25 The clairvoyants manning the psychic salons along New York’s Delancey Street also reported record-breaking business. “The crowds who are helping to fatten the bank accounts of the East Side seers and seeresses are made up mostly of women, and there the concern seems to be about the comet and what damage it will do if its tail is able to beat its way through the East Side air.”26 The psychics, reported the newspapers, performed a valuable public service, reassuring their clients and tamping down the terror. A New York Sun reporter, while staking out one of the parlors, saw a young woman rush in and demand an audience with the resident prognosticator. She had saved $150 in her bank account and desperately needed counsel: if the comet was expected to destroy humanity that evening, shouldn’t she withdraw her money and enjoy one last Epicurean fling? The seer calmed the woman, explaining that the comet wasn’t going to destroy the earth. Years still remained for her to dribble her money into the hands of mystics. 204

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Although the New York astrologers were confident that the planet would survive the cometary brush, fortune-tellers outside the city were less sanguine. In York, Pennsylvania, Lee Spangler, a seer “who prophesied the San Francisco earthquake and fire, the date of the death of Queen Victoria, the assassination of Pres. McKinley and the drought last summer” doubted that the earth would survive its encounter with the comet.27 With such an impressive record of forecasts, Spangler deserved attention. According to the astrologer, the scientists had botched their orbital calculations: the comet would not just sweep the planet with its tail, but would sideswipe it. The collision, he declared, would trigger earthquakes and massive volcanic eruptions in “unexpected places.” The geological upheaval would be accompanied by “drought, pestilence, and great wars.”28 Halley’s Comet, said Spangler, was the Star of Bethlehem. The comet that had marked the birth of Christ now returned to announce the earth’s final travail. “Halley,” said Spangler, “was a man that had the spirit of God and this comet was revealed to him so that he should keep it in history so that it would not be lost sight of by the people until His second coming.” The comet had returned at this time to remind Christians of the need to remain vigilant. The earth would not be destroyed during this orbit, “but the people will see one of the greatest celestial displays of fireworks that has ever been seen. Many will cry aloud and think that the world is coming to an end.”29

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Business was also booming for the church. Congregations across the country reported a record number of conversions and unprecedented attendance. Observers in Alexandria, Virginia, suggested that the comet had done more for evangelization than “all the revivals and camp meetings have done for years past. The superstitious ones see nothing but dark foreboding in the comet’s approach.”30 Newspapers scoffed at the religious renaissance, labeling it a rebirth of faith among the superstitious and weak minded: in other words, immigrants and African Americans. In Chicago, fear of comet-related disasters—a direct strike, tidal wave, flood, epidemic, or gassing—had 205

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driven the credulous into religion’s embrace. “All the churches in the foreign districts, noticeably the Italian, Greek, and Polish, were jammed to the limit day and night with frenzied persons praying that the disaster might be averted.”31 Parish priests reported a heightened interest in matters of the spirit. They had exhausted themselves offering comfort to the immigrants who believed that the end was imminent. “Among the Hungarians, the Poles, the Lithuanians and the Russians the anxiety and absolute fear has been the greatest. ‘They have been terrified by the letters they have received from home,’ said Dr. St. Clair C. Drake, ‘and nothing we can say here can disabuse their minds. They will remain terrified until Thursday morning in spite of everything.’”32 Some people were too frightened to leave their homes to attend a church service. “Hundreds of superstitious foreigners locked themselves in their homes early today, stuffed up all the cracks and keyholes and refused to peer out. . . . In the negro quarters there was abject terror, and the cellars and other dark places were densely inhabited.”33 Christians did not enjoy a monopoly on comet fear. “In the Ghetto long-bearded rabbis passed from one synagogue to another, dispensing comet wisdom and abjuring the orthodox. The services in the synagogues were largely attended, solely by men, but the women and children conducted the open market business as usual.”34 Although most ministers believed the earth would survive passage through the tail, some clergymen agreed with Lee Spangler and preached that the end was nigh. In Philadelphia, Reverend Dr. William Cook placed a phone call to city hall and demanded to speak with the mayor. When questioned about his business, Reverend Cook revealed that he intended to pressure the mayor into making a public statement about the impending danger. “The mayor ought to issue something warning the people to watch out for the comet,” he said before hanging up the phone.35 In Baltimore, Mrs. Ida Nelson, pastor and founder of the city’s Universal Church, believed that God intended destruction, but he would do so with discrimination. She summoned the 120 members of her church to a special evening meeting at which the congregation offered interces206

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sions for the wicked and the unsaved. God, claimed Reverend Nelson, would use the comet’s tail to perform a divine sorting: “only the wicked were to be destroyed, as the righteous will be saved by the intervention of Divine Providence.”36 Outside of Atlanta, three hundred members of a religious cult barricaded themselves into a cave. Convinced that the end was at hand, they offered their final prayers before the comet destroyed the earth.37 On the other hand, some African American ministers expressed confidence about the earth’s chances. In Missouri, the Kansas City Star wrote, “Uncle Remus, Montgomery’s faithful old negro” calmed the fears of his congregation.38 He told his flock that since scripture taught that no man will know when the Lord will return, not even the angels in the heavens, then this night clearly did not mark the end. Humans had been forewarned of the comet’s approach; it was not arriving like a thief in the night. There was no doubt that the comet was not the ultimate doom predicted in the Bible.

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The world might escape destruction but that didn’t mean the comet wouldn’t sow havoc on a smaller scale. Who knew what perils might arrive in the comet’s tail? It did no harm to prepare for lesser disasters. Farmers in rural Wisconsin removed lightning rods from their houses, barns, and outbuildings, fearing that the metal might attract a “dangerous element contained in the property of the comet.”39 In Duluth, owners of homes on Minnesota Point, the spit of land that divided Superior Bay from Lake Superior, began an evacuation. Thousands of residents relocated to higher ground, where they planned to remain until after the comet had passed. Their homes were built on land that was only twelve feet above the normal water level. They would be swamped if the comet created a vacuum that pulled a tidal wave into Superior Bay.40 Bolts of comet energy and tidal waves were not the only preoccupations in the final hours before tail passage. Despite the repeated claims that cyanogen gas could not possibly penetrate the earth’s atmosphere, many remained unpersuaded. Newspaper coverage did little to assuage 207

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this fear. “If, at about 8:30 tonight,” noted a story on the front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “while on the stoop waiting for a glimpse of the comet’s tail, your nostrils should be greeted by the pleasant odor of a peach orchard, do not be deceived into thinking that strong breeze has wafted the perfume from the far fields of Long Island.”41 To the contrary, warned the paper, you would be experiencing one of the early warnings of imminent death. Cyanogen gas, although a deadly poison, possessed a charming peach aroma. But readers shouldn’t be deceived by that appealing scent; the smell meant that the comet was poisoning the atmosphere and death was only moments away. The sweet aroma of a gently bubbling cobbler in a mother’s oven would ease victims into unconsciousness. Was this likely to happen? “Scientists and astronomers differ as to whether the tail of the comet is really enveloped in this deadly vapor,” concluded the article.42 Perhaps cyanogen was already seeping into the atmosphere. The morning edition of the Chicago Tribune reported that the superintendent of the Michigan Agricultural College’s poultry farm awoke on the morning of May 18 to find his flock dead. Hundreds of newly hatched chicks had expired in the night. The superintendent was baffled by this sudden die-off, “and it was not until the head of the scientific department advanced the theory that gases from the comet caused their death that the mystery was solved.”43 The young birds were the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, signaling rising cyanogen levels in the earth’s atmosphere. This leading indicator was confirmed, continued the Tribune, by additional poultry deaths in Michigan. “Several farmers throughout the county reported today that young turkeys and chickens were dying by the hundreds and the college authorities attribute it to atmospheric disturbances.”44 Fortunately, this unsourced, unconfirmed wire service report received little notice beyond the pages of the Tribune. Had it run a day earlier, it might have catalyzed riots. Look at what was happening overseas: In Paris, chemist shops reported a run on oxygen cylinders—panicked citizens were scooping them up in the hope of providing supplemental oxygen as the cyanogen cloud descended.45 The wealthy residents of 208

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Turin, Italy, adopted a similar strategy. “They propose to lock themselves in their rooms on Tuesday night and remain over Wednesday, trusting to Providence and the oxygen to save them from death as a result of the gas in the comet’s tail.”46

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The pressure of the final days pushed some over the edge. Several people, taking the wild stories printed in the national newspapers seriously, chose a self-inflicted death over the unknown agonies arriving with the tail. In Calumet, Wisconsin, Gustave Kaiser, a seventy-two-year-old retired miner, hung himself. Wire service reports claimed that Kaiser had “talked continually of the comet’s appearance and was mentally deranged.”47 His family reported that he had grown convinced that the comet was about to destroy the earth, and to avoid witnessing that fate, he hung himself in the chicken house. “He leaves a wife and a large family.”48 Down south near Decatur, Alabama, Wade Cowan, a respected farmer, was frightened by the “newspaper reports he had read saying that Halley’s comet would set the world on fire next Wednesday and that all would be destroyed.”49 Cowan swallowed a large dose of strychnine, “dying in great agony. He leaves a widow and seven children.”50 In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clementine De Rienzo went mad and killed herself. The woman had suffered great fear for two weeks before her death. At one point she had attempted to drown herself in the Ohio River. When her husband pulled her out of the water, Mrs. De Rienzo told him that “everyone would be killed May 18 and she might as well have it over with then.”51 A few days later, while visiting a neighbor, a dark storm cloud blew across the city. When Mrs. De Rienzo saw it, she “became like a maniac.”52 Terrified by the sudden darkness, she shouted, “the comet is upon us,” and rushed into the street. She corralled her children and drove them into a neighbor’s house. Locking the doors, she ran upstairs, found a revolver, and shot herself through the heart. Her husband reported that she “had not slept a wink for the past two weeks, living always in dread of the sudden visit of Halley’s Comet.”53 Additional suicides were also reported from around the world. In Sanremo, Italy, a man allegedly killed his wife and then committed 209

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suicide to avoid the comet. “A wealthy peasant, for the same cause, jumped off the cliffs. Similar cases are reported in Spain and Portugal.”54 Nor were the cometary deaths limited to those who took their lives in a fit of terror. Scientific curiosity could be as deadly as derangement. In Evansville, Indiana, a barber named Jacob Haberlach suffered a heart attack in the early morning hours. Although only forty-eight years old, the excitement of seeing the comet overtaxed his heart and he “fell over dead.”55 Fred Bickle, Haberlach’s next-door neighbor, found his friend and called the coroner. The barber was dressed in his pajamas and stretched out on the floor. He had spent the previous afternoon fishing and told his companions that he intended to sit up through the night to see the comet at dawn. “It is thought that Haberlach was stricken while in the act of looking out of his window for the comet.”56 Fred E. Becker, also of Evansville, Indiana, was another victim. He had risen early, several days in a row, to see the comet. Clouds foiled his attempts, and the early morning vigils had cost him “several hours sleep.”57 He collapsed while looking out of his windows alongside several members of his family. The medical examiner attributed the cause of death to excessive fatigue. The comet’s curse also touched Israel Grigul of Chicago. In the hours before sunrise, Grigul, a local peddler, missed his footing in the dark and stepped onto the glass pane of his apartment building’s rooftop skylight. The rest of his body followed. He tumbled through the glass and plummeted three stories. The comet-gazer smashed his skull on the hard concrete and died a couple of hours later.58 Through accident or terror, the comet was amassing an impressive body count—before the tail had even touched the earth.

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Chapter Sixteen

Syzygy

There will be fifty-eight minutes tomorrow night in which we will be in syzygy (pronunciation sizzagee). . . . Any time you can be ‘in sports, literature, art, science, politics or jail,’ but it is only once in seventy-five years that anybody can be in syzygy. It is an astronomical condition. When the earth passes through the tail of a comet, that’s being in syzygy. —Kansas City (MO) Star, May 18, 1910 Technically, syzygy is the alignment of three objects, none of which must be a comet, but even if the Kansas City Star had misdefined the term, the anticipated evening had arrived. As the sun crept slowly across the afternoon sky and the comet’s tail swung toward the planet, people made their final preparations. A group of chorus girls, including sisters Mina and Vera Harrington, abandoned their touring company in Rock Island, Illinois. It was more important, they told a reporter, to return home and spend the final hours with their parents. Although the producers persuaded some of the performers to remain with the troupe, the Harrington sisters refused to entertain the idea. They collected their back pay and caught a train to Ohio, returning home “to face the end of the world.”1 In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the threat of world’s end prompted a reconciliation between Johnson Callis and his wife. In 1895, Callis, a jealous man, had suspected his wife of infidelity. He threw her out of the family 211

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home. Before departing, she swore that she would not return until the world came to an end. After a decade and a half of morose rumination, Callis realized that he had made a terrible mistake: she hadn’t been unfaithful. When the newspapers announced that the comet might destroy the earth, he decided to track her down and propose a reconciliation. He followed her trail through six states, finally catching up with her in Muskogee, Oklahoma. “Callis, who is somewhat of an astronomer, believes in the theory that the earth will go to smash when it meets the comet on May 18 and despite the laughs of the scientists at the old man’s theories, he has succeeded in convincing his wife that it will bear water.”2 The couple reunited, and Mrs. Callis returned to Cedar Rapids, vowing to remain even if the earth escaped destruction. The credulous were not the only people preparing for the comet. America’s astronomers completed final checklists as the sun crossed into the western sky. Whereas the superstitious might dread the tail’s passage, Harvard Professor Edward Pickering expressed a different worry: “Astronomers have one fear concerning the comet, that is that the earth may slip through the comet’s tail tomorrow evening without their noticing it. . . . We are taking every precaution at the observatory to have our instruments in readiness to record the minutest action of the comet.”3 At Wisconsin’s Yerkes Observatory, a battery of telescopes pointed at the sky. Each of the sixteen instruments had assigned servers who would operate the instrument during tail passage, recording observations and snapping pictures through the night. Through the “afternoon and evening and all night the observatory will present the appearance of the upper deck of a battleship discharging its guns at an aerial fleet. More than fifty lenses will be directed at the sky. Photographic plates are stacked up like ammunition for a naval engagement. Cots and blankets are placed by the larger instruments for the observers to snatch a few moments sleep when possible.”4 Observatories around the globe made similar preparations. Halley’s close pass offered an unparalleled opportunity to acquire new knowledge about comets; no astronomer wanted to be caught unprepared.

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Weather prophet Irl Hicks claimed the day’s first scientific discovery. At noon on May 19, he phoned the offices of the St. Louis Star to report that he had spotted an “unusually large sunspot” darkening the face of the sun. This was evidence, he claimed, of “a remarkable volcanic solar eruption, due to the conjunction of certain planets, and intensified by the impact of the comet upon the solar atmosphere.”5 Naturally, he had predicted that there would be a solar eruption when the comet passed. On Tuesday evening, he had told an audience gathered at the Fellowship Club of King’s Highway Presbyterian Church to keep an eye on the sun for disturbances. The sunspot was immense, large enough to be seen without a telescope. Hicks recommended, however, that observers view the sun through a piece of smoked glass or an opera glass with a darkened lens. The sunspots consisted of “three awful groups,” confirmed Father Brennan, professor of astronomy at St. Louis’s Kenrick Seminary. “In one of the groups I counted 26 spots; in another there is a large isolated one near the bottom of the sun. In the principal group one of the spots is the largest I have ever seen. It is probably 150,000 miles across.”6 Once again America’s weather prophet stole a base and beat the established scientists to a discovery. On the other hand, Father Brennan rejected the weather prophet’s claim that the sunspots were linked to the comet. “There is no possible connection between the comet and the sun spots. The comet is 80,000,000 miles away from the sun and could not possibly have any effect upon it. It would require a body as large as the earth to fall into the sun to make such a spot as the large one in the principal group. There are always spots on the sun,” concluded Brennan.7

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The sun would be high above the Pacific Ocean when the comet slipped through the gap between it and the earth. The Hawaiian Islands offered an excellent vantage point to record the comet’s transit. A team from the American Astronomical Association had established a base camp on Oahu that planned to photograph the comet’s nucleus as it crossed the solar face. This was a remarkable opportunity. For fifty-eight minutes, the sun would backlight the nucleus. With luck, the observers would spot it 213

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in their telescope and determine if the comet head was solid, a gaseous lens, or something not yet imagined. Naulty’s theory would be confirmed or disproved. A second expedition, funded by the Carnegie Institute, had also traveled to Hawaii. Professor Ferdinand Ellerman of the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory brought a special camera of his own design that would snap photos of the comet’s passage across the sun. His instrument consisted of a “small six-inch equatorial telescope, driven by clockwork to follow the motion of the heavens and attached to a camera.”8 Professor Ellerman had tested his device on Comet A1910, and he was confident that it would return excellent results. The scientists were ready. After months of planning, the moment had arrived.

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At 8:00 p.m. New York time, the tail of Halley’s Comet intercepted the earth’s orbit. First contact occurred over the eastern Pacific Ocean. The planet rolled into the tail like a golf ball plunging into a mountain stream. On the comet side of the earth, shutters began firing as astronomers documented the long-anticipated event. In St. Louis, Missouri, Professor George James and pilot John Berry climbed into the basket of Berry’s balloon, the St. Louis III, and cast off the mooring lines. The craft lurched to the left, stabilized, and then rose slowly into the sky, ascending into an atmosphere that might soon be roiled by the comet’s tail. The balloon carried a selection of scientific instruments: an aneroid barometer, thermometers, and a telescope. James and Berry intended to monitor changes in the atmosphere and collect data on passing meteors. A northeasterly wind caught the craft and carried it out of sight over the horizon. Most of America greeted the comet without scientific apparatus. As the country slid into the tail, its citizens responded in predictable ways. In Chicago, members of Bethel Chapel, a black church on Dearborn Street, gathered for an all-night prayer vigil. “My people have not felt any more apprehension over the coming of the comet than others have,” said the congregation’s pastor, Reverend Roberts, “but we always feel a certain 214

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comfort in gathering together and for that reason there was a general feeling throughout the congregation that we should meet tonight.”9 Bethel Chapel, wrote the Chicago Inter Ocean, was no anomaly. Throughout the day, supplicants had crowded the city’s houses of worship, offering prayers for divine mercy. Those without faith turned to the scientists for reassurance. Meteorologists at the city weather bureau answered a steady stream of telephone calls over the course of a long afternoon. “Statements by scientists that they did not anticipate even the slightest disturbances in the wake of the comet failed to put an end to the superstitious fears.”10 As evening arrived, some of the city’s residents took countermeasures against the comet. Mothers gathered their children off the streets and, as the sun set, wedged cotton or fabric scraps into the cracks around windows and beneath doors to block the incursion of cyanogen gas. People continued to yield to their fears. As night settled over Chicago, Samuel Popowiski succumbed to “cometitis.” Police, summoned to Clark Street, found “Professor” Popowiski offering a lecture to an expanding crowd of listeners. Popowiski claimed that he could feel the comet’s tail striking him. He could “detect a foreign element in the atmosphere,” and the smell was not the usual aroma from the nearby stockyards. The increasing concentration of gas was poisoning him, claimed Popowiski. Many of his listeners felt their throats constrict. It was becoming difficult to breathe. Was Popowiski right? The police arrived just as the professor launched into an explanation of how the professional astronomers had erred. They had miscalculated the comet’s orbit and the fiery orb would smash into the earth sometime during the night. The officers were unamused; they dispersed the crowd and escorted Popowiski to the Harrison Street Police Station. A local doctor, Blake Baldwin, examined the frantic man and declared that he was suffering from hallucinations produced by his inordinate fear of the comet. Not everyone in Chicago was afraid. Thousands set up benches and chairs along the shores of Lake Michigan while the more privileged crowded the roofs of Chicago’s taller buildings. Atop the Blackstone Hotel, “the ‘airship station’ was covered with steamer chairs, and many 215

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diners and guests paid a visit to the sky parlor during evening and night.”11 Similar arrangements were in effect at the University Club, Chicago Club, and any other building with a rooftop view. Beneath clear skies and superb viewing conditions, the observers settled in to watch the show. Even though the comet was hidden behind the earth, the sky watchers hoped to see flashes of light in the sky, meteor showers, or some of the other electric, auroral displays that had been predicted as the tail swept the planet. Two hundred miles south of the city, in the small town of Campbell Hill, Illinois, residents gathered in a public hall to hear Professor Hadley lecture about comets.12 As the crowd listened to his astronomical discourse, a loud explosion shook the building, rattling the glass panes in the window frames. Green light flared outside. “Some person with a decidedly masculine voice, suited for calling hogs, climbed on top of a seat and bayed: ‘The world has this hour come to an end.’”13 Young women broke into a Greek chorus of terrified wails; mothers stampeded; brave men breathed deeply of the air that was rapidly coalescing into cyanogen. The lecture hall emptied as Professor Hadley’s audience fled into the night. It was, of course, a prank. “Two minutes later the jokers entered the hall on the verge of hysterics from joy, but those who left the building before the humorists entered are supposed to be running yet.”14 Pranks were not confined to the Midwestern states. In Roselle, New Jersey, a chemist named Herman Boehm attached a small amount of sodium and a stick of dynamite to a balloon. He and his son, Rudolph, took the rig to an empty field south of town. The Boehms lit the fuse, released the balloon, and watched as it drifted north over Roselle. The fuse triggered the dynamite a thousand feet above the town and ignited the sodium. The dish-rattling explosion and the flash of burning sodium terrified the residents. “Fully an hour passed before the fears of the people were allayed.”15 Jokesters played a similar trick in New York City’s Little Italy. At 8:00 p.m. as darkness fell across the city, “about twenty persons were standing at Mulberry and Broome streets looking skyward when they saw a round ball of fire appear from behind a cloud, as it seemed 216

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to them, and descend toward the earth.”16 With a sudden flash of light, the ball exploded, propelling several smaller flames toward the earth. Frantic people screamed, threw themselves on the sidewalks, and began to recite prayers. “There was a panic in which many were trampled when the supposed aerolite exploded into small fragments. Somebody had been unkind enough on this, of all nights, to send up a fire balloon.”17 New York apprehension also provoked religious devotion. Thirty minutes after the fire balloon exploded, Patrolman Kirk, who walked a beat near Mott Street’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, heard the sound of voices approaching from down the street. “He recognized the chant as that of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, and soon saw a long procession of little Italian children, the girls dressed in white. Over a hundred adults walked behind the children, bareheaded and reverently singing.”18 When Kirk questioned one of the marchers about the unauthorized parade, the man pointed silently at the sky. The procession stopped before the cathedral, where the people knelt, offered lengthy prayers, and then dispersed peacefully. Many of the city’s residents elected to follow the advice of the bartenders who had recommended alcohol as a certain antidote to cyanogen poisoning. The bars enjoyed a brisk trade as the night settled in, with “comet cocktails” emerging as a best seller, followed closely by the “syzygy drink,” which proved more difficult to pronounce than to drink. Restaurants—those venues at street level as well as the hastily arranged terraces atop the skyscrapers—did well. “The feminine portion of the diners who crowded the lobster palaces were garbed in raiment as filmy in appearance as is said to be the portion of the comet which all sought to see last night, and as the fair wearers passed along they attracted comment more favorable than any which Halley’s discovery could ever hope to have showered upon it.”19 The city’s hotels offered elaborate plans to entertain their guests. “You’d be surprised,” said a desk clerk, “to know how many people are talking about the old comet. Why one man here buys every edition of every morning and afternoon paper, and has been going up on the roof even in the daytime.” 217

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The Manhattan Hotel offered rooftop dining to its guests. The establishment procured a fifteen-foot telescope for the use of those holding reservations. The Waldorf Hotel made a similar arrangement, “and hundreds of guests took a peep at the sky.”20 At street level, an enterprising con man named Edward Walsh placed six beer bottles in a line, wrapped this cylinder in pasteboard, and sewed black cloth over his contrivance. When he finished, the beer bottles resembled a telescope. He mounted his device on thin sticks and placed it on the corner of Fifty-first and Third Avenue. There he invited members of the passing crowd to view the comet—for a nominal fee. The illusion was short-lived. Those at the head of the line quickly determined that nothing could be seen through the beer bottle telescope. They attacked Walsh, broke his prop, and he was forced to flee the scene of his makeshift observatory. Thousands gathered in the city’s parks, packing binoculars, telescopes, and opera glasses. People crowded the deck of the Williamsburg Bridge, and the police found it nearly impossible to keep the span open for traffic. Although these viewers spotted occasional light flares from the Williamsburg Gas Plant, the thickening haze concealed the comet’s tail. Mary Proctor returned to the roof of the New York Times Building to continue her vigil. She knew that after the earth passed through the tail in the night, the comet would only appear in the evening sky following sunset. There was no good reason to spend another morning atop the Times Building, but Mary decided to do it anyway. From her vantage point, Mary watched the comet parties in progress on the rooftops around her. “Sounds of merriment occasionally reached us, but by half past ten we—that is, Miss L., who had offered to share the lonely vigil with the writer until dawn—were the only watchers on the tower. The hush of a great silence had gradually fallen over the city, and in silence, too, we watched the eastern sky for any further trace of the comet.”21 Paris reported disappointing viewing conditions. Clouds masked the skies during the afternoon, and a storm rolled across the city at 6:00 p.m. Diners filled the cafes and restaurants along the Seine, but if spectacular 218

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astronomical events accompanied the tail’s sweep, they were invisible from the ground. Camille Flammarion and a small group of colleagues enjoyed a dinner on the lower level of the Eiffel Tower and then ascended to the top of the iron structure to make their observations. “Nature was certainly cruel to us,” said the astronomer later, commenting on the adverse weather. “At 2:30 a.m. we who were on [the] Eiffel Tower smelled odors as of something burning. We learned, too, that the nightingales did not sing as usual. But we did not get enough data upon which to base any definite conclusion.”22 Masked by the clouds, the astronomers recorded no evidence of the earth’s passage through the tail. The group’s scientific instruments failed to detect the event. “Neither the magnetometer nor the electrometer indicated variations,” said Flammarion, “and the temperature was normal. There was absolutely no indication that we had passed through the comet’s tail. Our experiments on [the] Eiffel Tower were of no value but there were some good pictures taken at Juvisy that may prove interesting.”23 Flammarion told the reporters that he would need to develop and study those photographs before offering further statements.

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Pity the poor city desk editor. As the night unfolded, the earth passed untouched through the comet’s tail. No choking clouds of cyanogen gas, no electrical storms, no deadly barrage of flaming meteorites, no solar death ray scorching a charred path across the planet. As America’s streets emptied, and disappointed spectators returned to their homes for a few hours’ sleep, compositors pondered the next day’s headlines. “Nothing Happened,” wouldn’t sell many papers. The Chicago Tribune tried to make a good fist of it. “The total number of killed and wounded was nil, and so far as working havoc of any sort was concerned the comet goes speeding away to the outside reaches of the way-beyond with a clean bill of release.”24 Although viewers saw no evidence of the tail sweeping over the earth during the night, continued the Tribune, the scientists at the Yerkes Observatory witnessed a stunning display. At roughly the same time the earth entered the comet’s tail, a 219

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massive coruscation of auroral light exploded in the north. “A white light was at first visible growing heavy close to the northern horizon. It spread until it would seem that the glow should burst into flame. Then suddenly shafts of light shot out and reached upward through the zenith.”25 This display writhed and oscillated on the horizon’s northern edge, shooting gouts of silver plasma into the sky. Slowly the display changed color, becoming a shade of red wine. “The color pulsed and throbbed, spread out over the steady white shafts of light, flickered and went out and then grew to life again.” The professional astronomers were less impressed. The light display rendered in such graphic terms was nothing more than a manifestation of the aurora borealis, a common sight at Yerkes. The evening of May 18 had been disappointing. “We have passed through the comet’s tail,” said Professor Frost, “and we are no wiser than we were before.” Professor Samuel Mitchell, who had traveled to Wisconsin for the show, was similarly terse. “I’ve quit,” he told a reporter as he left the banks of telescopes shortly after midnight. “We are more than halfway through now and if anything were going to happen it would have happened by now.”26 As if to emphasize the point, the aurora borealis folded in upon itself and vanished from the sky. And even that spectacular display, said Frederick Slocum, one of the observatory’s solar astronomers, was unrelated to the comet. “They probably had something to do with the sunspots although those photographed yesterday were in no way remarkable.”27 “World Is Just the Same,” declared the headline that graced the front page of the Chicago Tribune.28 What a sad letdown. The Associated Press fared little better. Although balloon flights contained an element of risk, and a balloon flight to intercept the tail of the comet high in the night sky seemed especially promising, the wire service account of Professor George James’s balloon voyage from St. Louis opened with the unpromising phrase: “Fraught with mundane excitement. . . .”29 After their 6:30 p.m. launch, Pilot John Berry and Professor James drifted nine miles northwest and touched down in Carsonville, Missouri. They enjoyed dinner at a local farmhouse and then returned to their craft. They floated north for a couple of hours, but for unspecified reasons, 220

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never reached “a very high altitude.”30 As the men drifted in for a landing, a freight train roared past beneath the basket and the balloon’s drag rope nearly snagged on the train’s caboose—which might have provided some excitement. The aviators touched down in a wheat field and then dragged their partially deflated balloon, bumping across the ground, to a nearby farmhouse. They sloshed across two streams and it was 2:00 a.m. before they vented the last of the balloon gas, ending the flight. Although Professor James had plied his telescope with vigor, he had no shocking discoveries for the media. “I noticed no phenomena which I could confidently attribute to the effect of the passing of the comet’s tail, in which we rode for two hours,” he reported.31 Mundane excitement, indeed.

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The comet story was a damp fizzle. The planet passed through the tail and cyanogen hadn’t gassed the masses. Earthquakes failed to tear the continents; seas and lakes remained comfortably in their assigned positions. And yet, even though the comet did not harm the earth, it still touched minds. Stephen Connor, a mechanic in New York’s streetcar garage, reported for work as usual on May 18, the day before the earth was to pass through the comet’s tail. After spending the morning painting recently repaired cars, he vanished near lunchtime. One of his colleagues found him a few minutes later in the cellar. He clutched a rosary in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. A crimson stream pulsed from his slit throat. Medics transported Connor to the hospital, where seventeen stitches were required to close the bloody gash in his neck. “I tried to die because the world is coming to an end,” he told the doctors. “The comet is going to strike us.”32 After the doctors repaired the damage, he was remanded to the custody of the officers of the Forty-seventh Street Police Station. Comet madness also produced contrition. Luigi Ciefice, a gangster in the Italian Blackhand, walked into a Newark, New Jersey, police station and confessed to killing a man ten days earlier. His victim, Patrick Cahill, worked as a mechanic for the Pond Tool and Machine Company. After a 221

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dispute, Ciefice invited Cahill to his home, struck him with a blackjack, and shot him twice in the head. He buried Cahill under a corn shock near the pigpen on his property. Although the police had spent nearly two weeks searching for Cahill, the trail had run cold. They had no suspects and no theories about Cahill’s disappearance until Ciefice made a full confession. “The world is to be burned up tonight,” Ciefice told the policemen. “I cannot die until my heart is clean.”33 The comet’s influence was not limited to the East Coast. Mary Pittroff of St. Louis, dreading the approach of the comet, sent her father to the butcher to buy some meat. While he was out of the house, the twenty-nine-year-old woman swallowed six ounces of carbolic acid. Her father found her, minutes later, lying on her bedroom floor moaning. Mr. Pittroff called a doctor, who deemed her condition “serious.” The doctor did not, however, transport her to a hospital, and two hours later, Mary died. “For several weeks Miss Pittroff has been the victim of nervousness and neighbors to whom she talked yesterday say that the young woman often spoke of the possibilities of the visit of Halley’s Comet.”34 In Chicago, Blanche Covington was convinced that the comet would destroy the city. Her friends scoffed at this absurd belief but failed to turn her from her course. “Dreading the suffering that might be occasioned by the fire in the comet’s head, she determined to commit suicide and beat the comet to it.”35 Blanche locked the door of the room she occupied on La Salle Street and turned on the gas. The smell of gas seeping around the door attracted the attention of another boarder, Marie Welch. She broke the door open, and although the thick gas nearly overwhelmed her, she managed to drag Blanche from the room. With the help of a policeman, Welch revived her neighbor. Not so fortunate was Sophia Hogue, a ninety-year-old woman who turned on the gas at her home on Madison Avenue. She was found dead, another victim of comet madness. In Los Angeles, Charles Gasburg, a visitor from Brigham City, Utah, attempted suicide by throwing himself in front of a moving passenger train. The impact flung his body fifty feet, but he survived. “The comet 222

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will sure burn up the earth and I didn’t want to die that way,” he told his doctors in the hospital.36 In Santa Ana, California, Mrs. Viola Fastenum allegedly forced her two children to drink a solution of concentrated lye, and then she finished the bottle. Fastenum, according to the newspapers, claimed that the comet was certain to destroy the earth and she hoped to spare herself and her children from a fiery death. The three were “at the point of death.”37 Even though this story was reported widely across the country, it appeared in no California newspapers. Nor was there ever any follow-up, leaving the nation’s readers to wonder what happened to this fear-maddened woman and her children. Finally, in Walla Walla, Washington, a sheepherder named Peter Augusta, a French immigrant, went mad while trying to penetrate the comet’s mysteries. Augusta, behaving erratically, was escorted to the police station in Walla Walla. The men who questioned him could not speak French, and it took several days to locate a translator. Augusta, the police concluded, was obsessed with the comet. He read every book available on the subject, and his excessive interest had driven him insane. He was now safe in a padded cell, a man whose pursuit of knowledge had converted him into a “raving maniac.”38

d

In the early morning hours of May 19, as newspaper editors struggled to spin straw into gold, Mary Proctor maintained her lonely vigil atop the New York Times Building. While the professional astronomers at Yerkes, Mount Wilson, and the Lowell Observatory were packing their gear and calling it a night, Mary waited, taking careful notes. The comet parties on nearby hotel roofs drew to a close. The last clink of cutlery faded as busboys finished clearing tables. New York’s streets, radiating out from her vantage point, grew still. As midnight approached, Proctor recorded an auroral flash through the cloud deck. A low mist rolled across the city, lit by the moon that was gaining strength as the clouds dispersed. A meteor drew a burning line across the sky, visible for an estimated five seconds.

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Proctor kept her station. Shortly before 3:00 a.m., she received diligence’s reward. “Streamers,” she wrote, “which later proved to be the comet, were observed reaching from the eastern horizon, below Gamma Pegasi, and curving upward through Aquarius as far as Altair, and brighter in appearance than the Milky Way. . . . The path of this band of light was very nearly that along which the comet was last seen, and the writer was convinced that it was the outer boundary of the tail through which the earth was passing.”39 This was impossible. Hours earlier the comet had flown past the earth, dragging its tail across the surface of the planet. The comet was now beyond earth’s orbital track, heading for Mars. It should be visible only in the evening skies. And yet Proctor spotted the tail in the morning just before sunrise. Something was wrong—the earth hadn’t passed through the tail. Had the astronomers miscalculated? Did the earth still face the potential horrors of passage through the tail? As the world’s astounded experts conferred, newspaper editors smiled and sharpened their pencils. Some good news about the comet at last.

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Chapter Seventeen

The Case of the Missing Tail

O, there was a little comet And it had a little tail Just twenty-five million miles long. Now the pretty little comet Has lost his little tail Just twenty-five million miles long. Astronomers, still gazing Sit and wonder (quite amazing) Just why they went a million miles wrong. —Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1910 Was Mary Proctor right? Was the comet tail still on the wrong side of the planet? The establishment’s first instinct was to deny her sighting. “Some one,” sniffed a professional astronomer, “thinks she saw the comet in the eastern sky, when it is really in the west.”1 Fortunately, not all of the astronomers had packed their telescopes, and the major observatories soon confirmed Proctor’s claim. “Shattering all scientific calculations and puzzling learned astronomers who declare that they made sure of the unprecedented phenomena with repeated observations here before daybreak this morning,” wrote the Associated Press, “the glowing tail of Halley’s comet appeared in the eastern sky today at a time when all [the] world’s comet authorities had agreed it would be in the west.”2

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“No adequate explanation, however, is forthcoming,” concluded the AP bulletin. That is not to say that the astronomers lacked theories. In the days before the comet passed the earth, Professor Barnard observed a growing curve in the tail through the telescopes at the Yerkes Observatory. Calculations of the time the earth would enter the tail were based on the assumption that the tail flowed in a straight line away from the head. What if the tail was curved? Professor Edwin Frost, the director of the Yerkes Observatory, endorsed his colleague’s suggestion. A curved tail explained its continuing presence in the eastern morning sky. The comet was shaped like a comma; the head pulled a tail that extended in a long sweeping curve behind it. “The comet’s head passed the disk of the sun according to calculations,” Frost told reporters. “If the tail had been extending straight out, it would have brushed the earth at the same moment. But the end is curved back—we don’t know how much—and that is the reason for the delay. It may be twenty-four hours, more or less. There is no means of telling.”3 Other astronomers suggested that the tail had separated from the comet’s head. Like an escaping lizard, the comet’s nucleus dropped its tail and scampered away, leaving its glowing appendage stranded in the eastern sky. Professor Oliver Lee, while endorsing the curvature theory, also advanced the possibility that the tail no longer accompanied the comet’s head. “At first the only reason we could account for the unexpected phenomenon was that the tail had met with some heavenly obstruction, putting what we call a ‘knot’ into it.”4 Separation might have occurred if a patch of meteors or some other obstruction had cut the tail. Then there was a third possibility: the astronomers had made a math mistake, erring in their calculations of the time and date the comet tail would sweep the earth. Professor Elias Colbert supported this explanation: “We took the word of German and English astronomers for the hour when the earth would go through the tail of the comet. They made their observations and calculations some weeks ago, which was too early. I believe if we had based our figures on observations made a night or two ago, we would not have had the same results as were given out. 226

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If, instead of being curved, the tail was straight I should have been mildly astonished at our great miscalculations.”5 It was a puzzle, a celestial mystery. Nevertheless, science struggles to understand new evidence rather than simply denying its existence. Professor Frost, after studying the comet through one of the Yerkes telescopes, corroborated the point. “Greater than all the theories and all the computations are the facts. And the fact is that the tail of Halley’s comet has been appearing in practically the same position as it appeared yesterday morning. There is no question about that.”6 After confirming that the comet’s head was past the earth, Frost conceded the central mystery. “The appearance of the tail in the east this morning is the great puzzle. It cannot be explained satisfactorily at this time.”7 That didn’t stop others from trying. Reverend E. L. Eaton, pastor of Chicago’s Emmanuel Methodist Episcopal Church, suggested in a lecture that Halley’s Comet was able to “wag its tail” and had used this power to twitch its appendage away from the earth. “If we had seen meteoric showers,” said Eaton, “we would have been sure we passed through the tail. But since no such displays were observed, it is probable the comet wagged its tail away from the earth.”8 Edwin Fairfax Naulty, purveyor of the comet lens theory, offered an alternate explanation. In a letter published in the Washington, D.C., Evening Star, the astronomer suggested that the comet’s apparent inability to slip by the earth represented divine intervention. Why had God checked the comet’s progress? Impiety. God had decided to freeze the comet in space to produce a proper sense of awe among earth’s peoples. Naulty argued that human behavior had angered God. Rather than approaching the comet’s passage in a spirit of reverence and awe, the common people of New York had maintained “much of the amusement-seeking spirit that they would be animated by when going to a circus.”9 “In New York, lobster palace ‘comet parties’ prepared to make merry over and a jest of one of the most wonderful spectacles of the heavens. Elsewhere many expected that the ‘tail’ of the comet would be turned on for their special curiosity, and went to see it much as if it were some celestial moving picture show.”10 227

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God found this irreverent spirit offensive. “The heavens cannot be studied with the same motive that one watches a circus parade,” continued Naulty. “The wonder and the glories of the celestial spaces are not a hippodrome spectacle provided for amusement. One must approach them with a clean heart and a humble mind and in the right spirit.”11 But what about the scientists who had dedicated their lives to studying the wonders of the heavens? Also unworthy, declared Naulty. “Those astronomers of time and place, whose confident predictions of a fixed and absolute hour are really as impertinent as the gaping of the curious, have also been rebuked.”12 The professionals stood chastised for their impiety. The nightly contemplation of the heavens should produce reverence for the works of the creator. Atheistic astronomers had lost sight of the glorious entity who had created the marvels they studied. Was it any wonder that God chose to perform a miracle, one that would confound the wise and encourage reflection among the masses? “Is it not conceivable that in the search for other things we have forgotten God, and that this means may have been adopted to give to us an example of His power, that the lesson may sink deeply and be long remembered of all mankind?”13 Although definitely confounded, the scientists discounted Naulty’s interpretation and continued their search for a secular explanation of the comet’s strange behavior.

d

On the morning of May 20, Mary Proctor climbed the stairs to her observation post atop the New York Times Building. Once again she planned to watch the skies until sunrise, recording her impressions. Between 2:30 and 3:00, “a ghostly apparition resembling a slender band of light was seen extending upward, though almost parallel with the northeastern horizon. It seemed to rest on a darker band of luminous haze beneath.”14 Clearly a portion of the tail was still trapped in the eastern sky twenty-four hours after the comet should have vacated the skies above earth’s morning face. Clouds masked the skies over the Yerkes Observatory; the astronomers were unable to confirm Proctor’s observation. As the day passed, the tired 228

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scientists waited for the sky to clear. “When the clouds lifted for a short time,” wrote the reporter for the Chicago Times, “there was little enthusiasm under the great clockwork dome.”15 The comet appeared for a short time among the clouds, like a great fuzzy star hanging low on the western horizon. It didn’t appear to have a tail. Was it true that the tail had been left stranded on the sunrise side of the earth? The weary astronomers were divided. Professor Frost thought the comet had lost its tail, whereas Professor Mitchell advanced the idea that the tail was simply pointing right at the earth. The planet was in the middle of the tail and the astronomers were looking down the core of the plume; that was why the comet’s nucleus appeared fuzzy. Six hours later, as the earth rotated toward sunrise, the observers at Yerkes saw, on the morning of Saturday, May 21, the tail in the east. “It was evident tonight,” reported Professor Frost, “that the tail of the comet had been detached. I am not surprised that it should appear again in the east where it was seen Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings.”16 “This misadventure,” continued the professor, “is similar to one that occurred to the comet on its last previous appearance in 1835. On that visit it lost its tail just before it passed perihelion and was without one for nearly two months. A tail detached from a comet must continue in the comet’s path. There is no help for that. It may condense into a shower of meteors or it may swing along as a body of vapor forever.”17 Was Halley’s Comet scuttling like a tail-stripped lizard away from the sun, having left its tail behind as a souvenir or celestial standard for the earth? Astronomers at California’s Mount Wilson Observatory were dubious. On Friday evening, May 20, the scientists saw the head and tail together after sunset. Observatory director George Hale told the newspapers, “We saw Halley’s Comet with its tail extending about fifteen degrees toward the zenith. The tail was fan-shaped, spreading out from the head of the comet at an angle of forty degrees.”18 “Never in all the annals of astronomical science,” wrote the Los Angeles Times, “has a comet behaved with such infinite perversity or displayed such an utter disregard for all the decencies, the laws and the order of the skies. For the last two days the astronomers have been saying of the tail of Halley’s Comet what was said of the ghost of 229

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Hamlet’s father when it appeared on the platform at Elsinore, ’Tis here, ’tis here, ’tis gone.”19 On Saturday evening, May 21, Mary Proctor spotted the comet for the first time in the western sky. “It was to the left a few degrees north of the star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion, and it resembled a star of the third magnitude. It was surrounded by a hazy cloud-like mist that made it appear nearly as large as the space covered by the moon.”20 Two nights later, the astronomers at Yerkes had their best view of the comet. A lunar eclipse darkened the sky enough to emphasize the comet and its tail. As the moon slid into the earth’s shadow, the comet doubled its apparent luminosity. For the first time, the Yerkes observers measured the length of the tail, which now stretched across forty-five degrees of the sky. They also analyzed the tail’s light with a spectroscope. “The internal activity of the comet is in full blast,” stated Professor Frost. “It is making gas at a terrific rate.”21 Frost also said that he did not expect to see the old tail in the east when morning arrived. California astronomers had not seen it for several days and they doubted the Yerkes claim that it maintained an independent existence in the eastern sky. Frost endorsed that view. “The old tail must disappear,” he said. “When detached from its source it can only condense or fade away as the end of an active tail always does.”22

d

As reports arrived from the world’s observatories, Edwin Naulty grew more convinced that only his focused light theory accounted for all of the data. Father Algue, director of Manila’s Jesuit Observatory, reported that his astronomers had not detected a solid nucleus as the comet passed between the earth and the sun. Viewing conditions had been perfect, but the comet had eluded telescopic observation. The two Hawaiian teams also missed the nucleus. This failure suggested that—contrary to the prevailing theory—the comet’s head was gaseous and transparent. “The solid particles in the head of the comet, the gaseous ‘tail’ theory, the electrical repulsion of matter theory have been utterly discredited by Halley’s comet,” announced Naulty. “The transit was observed at many places in the eastern hemi230

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sphere and not a trace of solid particles was found. No explanation of the phenomena of comets now remain that will fulfill all requirements of the present questions but the simplest of all—the truth that the ‘tails’ of comets are nothing but transmitted sunlight, processed through space by the gaseous head of a comet.”23 Naulty’s theory also explained the tail’s strange behavior. Which was more plausible: that a gaseous tail detached from a comet and began an independent flight around the planet or that light, concentrated by a cometary lens, was illuminating interstellar cloud banks on the opposite side of the earth? The comet was like a flashlight held in a farmer’s hand when he walked out to check his livestock in the evening. The beam flashed left and right, up and down, as he walked. The same phenomenon, albeit at a planetary scale, was happening in the space around the earth. The comet lens, swinging side to side, threw a beam of light that glanced off the clouds of interstellar gas surrounding the earth. Sometimes that beam pointed toward the sun-facing side of the planet; sometimes it appeared on the opposite side. The tail had not detached from the comet—it simply flickered back and forth as the comet lens moved out into space. Naulty’s theory explained the puzzling observations. “It is a disagreeable thing to say ‘I told you so,’” wrote the astronomer, “but it will be recalled that I said in the Star of Wednesday evening that persons looking for unusual manifestations that night would be disappointed and that the expected effects would not be seen or felt for another day or so. News from Costa Rica shows another earthquake there, and within the next week we shall have many more reports of tremors and disruptions.”24 Not only would there be more earthquakes, but the disordered weather would continue as the comet flashed bursts of solar radiation at our planet.

d

Most astronomers were reluctant to endorse Naulty’s theory. But what did happen? Had the comet wagged its tail back and forth over the planet? Were the computations of its orbit so horribly flawed that it failed 231

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to leave the eastern sky until days after the projection? Did its tail detach while the head plunged ahead through space? A month after the event, Mary Proctor wrote an article addressing the comet’s strange behavior. “With the purpose of rectifying some of the erroneous and contradictory reports concerning the movements of Halley’s Comet after May 18, the writer has made an especial trip to the Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay, Wis., in search of actual facts.”25 After conferring with the astronomers who were studying the data, she was able to announce progress on the question: “I have been able to unravel the tangled web which had been woven around the celestial wanderer.”26 To begin, wrote Proctor, during the hours before the earth entered the tail, the gaseous plume had doubled in length from fifty degrees to one hundred. The tail was much longer than had been anticipated, and on the morning before the earth slid into the appendage, it shone “like the white boom of a powerful searchlight. It equaled in brightness the light of the Milky Way.”27 The tail was longer than expected and it had a complex shape. Rather than a single plume streaming away from the nucleus, the tail consisted of several branches that expanded from the head like a paper fan. The comet’s trajectory toward the earth had hidden this complex shape, and it wasn’t until after it had passed that astronomers realized that the tail possessed more than one appendage. The Yerkes astronomers, wrote Proctor, remained confident that the comet’s nucleus had passed between the earth and the sun on schedule. The orbital math was correct. On the other hand, the estimate of when the earth would slip through the tail had been based on the assumption that the tail was a single, straight plume. This mistake upset the calculations and accounted for the fact that the comet appeared in the western sky the next day, while the tail still appeared in the east. The tail had not detached from the comet; it was simply larger than expected, and it took more time to pass through the forks of gas than had been anticipated. “It would appear,” wrote Proctor, “that at least a portion of the tail swept by the earth on the morning of the 19th, and that we were within the forks or separate stream-

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ers of it for the days following, so that necessarily one portion of the tail would be to the east and the other to the west.”28 In short, despite the newspaper claims to the contrary, the comet had behaved largely as the scientists had predicted. The nucleus passed on schedule. The planet’s trip through the tail took longer than expected due to the size of the appendage, but ultimately the earth emerged on the other side and the comet left the planet’s neighborhood. “The present apparition of the comet,” Professor Frost told Mary Proctor, “has fully justified all scientific expectations. It has been brighter, has shown a greater extension of tail, has been longer visible than in 1835. The last fact is due to the greatly improved astronomical facilities for its observation and to the employment of the immensely valuable photographic process.”29 The comet’s visit was an enormous success: new data was collected, the earth had escaped destruction, and the serious scientific community was proven correct. But you wouldn’t have known that by reading the newspapers.

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Chapter Eighteen

And We (Mostly) Lived Happily Ever After

Nothing can be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. —Thomas Jefferson The Astronomers Were No More Reliable in Their Predictions About the Halley Comet Than Rev. Irl Hicks Is in Predictions About the Weather. —Atchinson (KS) Daily Globe, May 20, 1910 Many were doubtlessly happily surprised when the hours of the trip through the comet’s tail were over, and they found the earth serenely jogging along with nothing disastrous following the comet’s wake. It will be three-quarters of a century before the comet comes back, so there is reason to hope that on its next visit the race will have advanced so far in common sense and accurate knowledge that there will be nobody foolish enough to be scared with stories of conflagration, flood, and suffocation with cyanogen gas. —Buffalo (NY) Times, May 19, 1910 Who was to blame for the deaths and general distress caused by comet madness? In a flawed, self-serving postmortem, the newspapers assessed blame and laid it at the feet of the astronomers. The scientists had unnecessarily terrified the world. No two astronomers had agreed on what was going to happen, and none predicted the events that 235

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did transpire. Readers could draw one incontestable conclusion from the affair: the high priests who tended the altar of scientific progress were fraudsters and sham artists. “The comet, however, has at least done this: it has kicked over our last delusion,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. “Whatever we thought of everybody else in the world, we kept in reserve a feeling of deep respect that amounted to awe for the astronomer.” The editorial continued: “When he told us how much the moon weighs and exactly how cold it is on Mars, we exchanged glances of awe and said, ‘Wonderful; wonderful.’ It seemed to us perfectly astonishing that these brilliant scientists could take last year’s arithmetic and tell us exactly when the comet’s tail would strike us. And then it didn’t strike us. . . . I suppose they will go on telling us how the dog star is barking, and how fast the comets are going and where, and all about the canals on Mars; but we will listen from now on, with a smile of pity and pain.”1 The Times was not alone in censuring astronomy’s alleged failure. Scientists are like six eyewitnesses at a murder, opined the New York Sun. After the crime they would offer six different descriptions of the man who pulled the trigger. “None of the six would be trying to throw confusion into the police mind. Each one just couldn’t help injecting a little of his personal equation into what he saw, and his memory was colored in consequence.”2 Not only had the astronomers been wrong, concluded the Sun, but even after this embarrassing failure, they refused to acknowledge the inadequacy of their craft. “Notwithstanding what the comet has done to the scientists, they still pose as the only cock-sure people on earth.”3 Scientists retained their smug self-assurance even after Halley’s Comet had exposed the limitations of scientific thought. No one had been more wrong than Camille Flammarion. A full-page story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch vilified the astronomer for frightening the nation’s citizens with his dire predictions. In April, the “celebrated French astronomer, with the fancy and the imagination of a ‘best seller,’ sprung the story that the tail of Halley’s comet was simply loaded with cyanogen gas, a deadly compound with a peach blossom odor.”4 Trusting Flammarion, the gullible residents of America’s rural hinterland had panicked. From the farmers who dug caves to protect their 236

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families and livestock from cyanogen to the crusty scrooge who canceled debts in order to secure God’s favor, simpleminded rustics had been driven to irrationality by their misguided faith in the views of one “of the ablest little astronomers in the Milky-Way No. 10 of the Federated Astronomers and Sky Combers’ Union.”5 “Lots of people waited on May 20, 1910, for the end of the world by the laughing gas route,” wrote the Los Angeles Record, “which was predicted by that eminent French scientist, Camille Flammarion.” Despite his extravagant and baseless claims, the comet slipped past the earth without causing any damage. “Flammarion can see more different ways of ending the world than anyone else. In France they call him ‘the scientist with the wonderful imagination,’ and he certainly has a wonderful think tank. He can get heat out of the center of the earth and can count the boats on the canals of Mars—in imagination, of course.”6 Flammarion was a fearmonger, a foreigner, and a discredited alarmist who had traumatized the unsophisticated and superstitious. The comet had debunked both the prophet and his prophecies; if the comet’s tail possessed a silver lining, it was that Flammarion was now completely discredited. Astronomy’s king wore no robes. “It was certainly a laugh on flim-flammarion when we didn’t laugh ourselves to death, and he’s vexed because his prediction failed,” concluded the Record.7

d

Flammarion and his colleagues served as convenient scapegoats. As long as the newspapers controlled the narrative, they need never shoulder any blame. Rather predictably, the papers were disinclined to consider their own role in the spread of comet madness. That was unfortunate; a critique was long overdue. Nearly a decade later, Upton Sinclair, one of America’s leading investigative writers, discussed media shortcomings in his 1919 book, The Brass Check. Sinclair argued that the need to generate profits tainted the newspapers’ coverage of events. “Capitalist newspapers” were more committed to earning money for owners and shareholders than printing the truth. Newspapers and magazines competed for an audience. The more readers and subscribers, the greater the advertising revenue. The newspaper that 237

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failed to capture and hold the attention of its readers would soon become insolvent. Competition in the attention economy compelled reporters and editors to traffic in the shocking and the sensational. Sinclair highlighted three common strategies used to boost sales: journalists slandered people and printed untruths about them with impunity; they fabricated stories; and finally, reporters and editors exaggerated trivial stories, painting them as more consequential than they actually were. Newspaper portrayals of Camille Flammarion offer an obvious example of the first tendency. Despite the astronomer’s repeated denials of the claim that he expected cyanogen gas to exterminate life on the planet, the newspapers continued to assert the opposite. The alarmist view sold newspapers; it added drama to the story. Flammarion’s true position—that the comet posed no danger to the earth—was boring. Therefore, the newspapers and wire services repeated a lie, claiming that Flammarion had predicted the end of the world. They suppressed his attempts to clear the record. There was nothing he could do to stop this; in 1910, newspapers and magazines were the only daily source of information, and if the editors chose to cast Flammarion in the role of bogeyman, he had little hope of offering a counternarrative. The editors won. American newspapers did such an excellent job of misrepresenting Flammarion’s positions that he is still considered the chief culprit, the driving force behind the 1910 comet scare. No less an authority than the great Carl Sagan was gulled. When the comet returned in 1986, Sagan wrote: “The global pandemonium about poison gas in the tail of Halley’s Comet was, sadly, fueled by a few astronomers who should have known better. Camille Flammarion, a widely known popularizer of astronomy, raised the possibility that ‘the cyanogen gas would impregnate the atmosphere [of the earth] and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.’”8 In fact, it was the newspapers—following a playbook that emphasized exaggeration and, if necessary, fabrication of news stories— that deserved the blame for any panic that ensued.

d 238

And We (Mostly) Lived Happily Ever After

The rapid spread of false stories was catalyzed by the early-twentiethcentury wire services, especially the Associated Press. The Americans of 1910 lived during an age in which news about the rest of the country came through a narrow channel: the hometown paper. Small town and rural newspapers were published once or twice a week; local editors depended on the wire services to provide stories about what was happening across the country. Today Americans have many options for checking the veracity of the news they consume. A simple search of the internet often unmasks “fake news.” Although critical engagement with the news is exercised less often than is desirable, it is theoretically possible for a determined media consumer to research and question dubious stories. Most Americans lived on media islands in 1910; news of the world outside their counties arrived through a single source—often the Associated Press (AP). If the AP claimed that a shepherd named Paul Hammerton was driven mad by the comet and attempted to crucify himself in California, how was a reader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to know this was a hoax when it appeared on the front page of the local paper?9 Did Father Charroppin—an otherwise sensible and respected astronomer—really predict that Halley’s Comet was a sign of the apocalypse, the destroyer of the earth, and herald of Christ’s return? The AP happily spread that story through its network of newspapers; it was printed across the country, terrifying many. There is no record of the priest disavowing this idea, but by December 1909, he, like Camille Flammarion and the rest of the professional astronomers, was on the record stating that the comet would not harm the planet. The most interesting and titillating stories that flashed across the AP wire during this period always originated in remote parts of the country where verification was difficult. More suspiciously, these stories never received local confirmation. Why, for example, did none of the reporters who worked for the San Bernardino County Sun cover the story of the self-crucified shepherd? After miners released the deranged Paul Hammerton from his pillory and carried him into town, not a single local reporter stepped forward to write about the ghastly tragedy. On the

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other hand, the AP knew all about it. The story ran on the front pages of newspapers across the country. The only satisfying conclusion is that someone in the AP organization fabricated the story. Nor was Hammerton’s attempt at self-crucifixion the only example of a dubious story sparking across the AP’s telegraph lines. An equally egregious example opened this book. On the day after the earth passed through the comet’s tail, national newspapers carried an AP account of an averted human sacrifice in Aline, Oklahoma. Henry Heinman, the leader of the Select Followers, a religious cult, prophesied that God intended to destroy the world. The earth would “be rolled up like a scroll following contact with the tail.”10 Only a human sacrifice would check God’s wrath. Miss Jane Warfield, a sixteen-year-old member of the group, was chosen to serve as the propitiatory lamb. The forty members of the Select Followers led her into the Gloss Mountains, about twenty-five miles from Aline. There they clothed her in a white robe, placed a wreath of white roses on her head, bound her hands, and waited while Heinman sharpened the cold steel of a long butcher’s knife. Later accounts of this story improved upon this by claiming that Jane Warfield was actually stripped naked and tied to a stake “in the center of a dancing group of the crazed followers.”11 Fortunately, someone tipped Sheriff Hughes. Leading a six-man posse, he dashed through the night to rescue Jane. The peace officer and his men burst into the glade just as Heinman raised his blade to slaughter the expiatory victim. A brief fight—or perhaps a peaceful surrender, depending on which account you read—occurred. Sheriff Hughes and his men rescued Jane and arrested Heinman and the Select Followers. The homicidal malefactors were remanded to the Alfalfa County Jail for trial. It was a dramatic story, one that combined classic elements: comet madness, primitive superstition, and a daring eleventh-hour rescue of a beautiful virgin. Newspaper editors cleared space on their front pages. Here was a defining example of the crazed behavior that had swept the nation.

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And We (Mostly) Lived Happily Ever After

As it turned out, the story was complete nonsense, another entry in the collection of fictitious comet stories. The lack of follow-up is the most obvious sign that this was a hoax. Every version of the tale ends on a satisfying note: Miss Warfield was freed, and the evil Heinman and his minions were thrown into the county jail to await trial. Then what happened? Was Heinman tried? Were he and his followers found guilty of attempted murder? Were they sent to prison? Hanged? Search the newspaper archives, but you will find no answers to these questions. The story is never resolved; no further developments were ever reported. This is particularly strange—the story echoed for months. As late as August, Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader printed a half-page account of Miss Warfield’s rescue. New details about the daring rescue embroidered the original wire service account, but subsequent versions of the story failed to answer the obvious question. Three months after the events described, the Lexington Herald-Leader story concluded with Miss Warfield returned to her thankful parents and Heinman tossed into jail.12 What happened next? Surely there would have been some preliminary movement toward a trial in the intervening months. Why didn’t the Lexington Herald-Leader update the story for its readers? The obvious answer is that American courts don’t prosecute fictional characters. Heinman, the Select Followers, and the lovely Miss Jane Warfield were the product of an imaginative AP writer who fabricated and released the story to enliven a disappointing night. The story was set in Aline, Oklahoma, population 303, according to the 1910 census. However, even this small town possessed its own newspaper. The Aline Chronoscope, edited by S. C. Timmons, offered weekly coverage of the town’s news. The edition of the Chronoscope printed after the comet passage failed to mention the interrupted human sacrifice. To the contrary, the newspaper’s front page tackled the town’s big stories: the ease with which the census was proceeding, a recent planting of thirty acres of corn, and the interesting fact that a delegation of boosters from Wichita, Kansas, had visited Aline the previous Saturday.13 Nowhere in this paper, nor in subsequent editions, will a reader discover information 241

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about Jane Warfield, Henry Heinman, or the cultic rituals of the Select Followers. How could such a shocking event take place in a tiny town yet escape the notice of the local newspaper? A similar silence enfolds the rest of the state’s media. For the most part, the newspapers of Oklahoma did not print the AP story, as exciting as it was. There was one exception. The Cherokee Republican ran the story on the front page of its May 27 edition, but it prefaced the wire report with: “The following weird dispatch was sent from Aline last week to the Oklahoma City Times. It ‘listens’ [reads?] suspiciously like Ed Marchant who is known to be in hiding near the Big Tree at that place. It is supposed that the chimerical and fanciful brain of the noted dopester was suffering from acute inertia and that he relieved the inactivity by unwinding the story. Following is the harrowing story, not a word of which is true as a matter of course.”14 Cherokee, Oklahoma, lies seventeen miles southwest of Aline. It is the seat of Alfalfa County, home to the county jail, which is where Henry Heinman and his followers were allegedly sent. As the local paper notes, the story was a complete fabrication. Heinman was not sitting in the local jail. Not then, not ever. Did that inconvenient detail stop national newspapers from running the story of the Oklahoma maiden snatched from a frenzied band of comet-mad religious fanatics? Of course not. Newspapers reprinted the story throughout the summer of 1910, offering it as an example of the terror that had unmanned the country. No one outside of Cherokee, Oklahoma, questioned the tale. This willingness to ignore facts coupled with a lack of concern about whether a story was true throws a suspicious cloud over most of the comet coverage from this time. Newspaper editors were not inclined to allow questionable veracity slow a good story. Upton Sinclair was correct: newspapers often fabricated stories to capture their readers’ attention. This observation leads inevitably to the conclusion that many of the most dramatic stories of comet madness were simply made up. They were fake news stitched together to sell papers and titillate local readers.

d 242

And We (Mostly) Lived Happily Ever After

Sinclair’s final criticism—that newspapers fanned inconsequential stories into world-devouring infernos—was painfully evident in the coverage of the comet’s 1910 visit. A story that should have been relegated to Sunday supplements and newspaper science sections was elevated into a front-page crisis, largely through the efforts of the newspapers. As Sinclair noted, exaggeration was in a newspaper’s best interest. It boosted readerships and profits. It also produced terror. The best astronomers of the early twentieth century steadfastly maintained that the comet’s passage posed no danger to the earth. And yet, because of the way newspapers covered the story, terrified people packed churches on the night of May 18. Others huddled in backyard cyanogen shelters, stuffed fabric into the cracks around window frames, or—in the saddest cases—took their own lives. American newspapers revived the comet’s power to terrify. Edmond Halley had removed comets from the cabinet of divine portents, but the newspapers breathed fresh life into the astronomical phenomenon and produced comet madness. The newspapers turned a science story into the only story.

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The Los Angeles Record claimed that Camille Flammarion was disappointed that the comet had not exterminated humanity in a cloud of cyanogen gas.1 The paper was wrong. Flammarion’s dissatisfaction centered on the poor weather that hindered observation. In the days following tail passage, clouds obscured the skies over Juvisy. “Radiant afternoons, brilliant with sunshine, have been followed by foggy evenings, and since May 19 the observers have been forced to content themselves with short views, between the interstices of the clouds at rare periods of clear weather,” reported the astronomer.2 He went on to note that several observatories around the world had seen “bishop’s circles” in the skies during the passage through the tail. These rings of light around the sun and moon were thought to be the products of increased high-altitude dust—they were often seen after major volcanic eruptions—and their presence suggested that the comet had deposited a little of its own substance in the earth’s atmosphere. If there was any regret about the recent passage, concluded Flammarion, it was that the head of the comet had not been closer to the earth. Unresolved questions remained regarding the nature of the nucleus. A closer passage “remains for another time,” he wrote.3 Flammarion’s final thoughts on Halley’s Comet were, as always, sober and sensible. Camille Flammarion continued to study the heavens and write popular books and articles about his subject. After the death of his first wife, Sylvie, Flammarion, then seventy-eight years old, married his assistant, Gabrielle Renadout. Flammarion attributed his youthful vigor to the fact that he never drank water. Water, he maintained, was suitable for external use only. People aiming for longevity should follow the example of Flammarion’s grandfather, who drank only wine and lived ninety years. 245

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In 1922, his nation dubbed Flammarion a commander in the French Legion of Honor for his contributions to science and literature. His final book, Haunted Houses, continued his lifelong interest in paranormal events. It was an analysis of the stories surrounding buildings that were said to be occupied by ghosts. Upon his death in 1925, many of Flammarion’s colleagues in occult studies hoped that the astronomer would send messages back from the other side. No transmissions were received. In the months after his death, newspapers offered a mixed evaluation of Flammarion’s legacy. Many “professional” astronomers felt that he had wasted too much time and energy on popular literature. He should have devoted more of his prodigious energy to monographs and academic writing rather than newspaper and magazine articles. Other obituarists named him the world’s greatest astronomer and claimed that his most significant contribution lay in making astronomy comprehensible to a general audience as well as inspiring two generations of men and women to devote their lives to the sciences. As for those who deplored the time he wasted on paranormal phenomena, Flammarion wrote, “The Unknown of yesterday is the Truth of tomorrow. We must study everything, discuss everything, analyze everything, without prejudice. . . . The important thing for the progress of ideas is that we should not be closed up, should not be blinded by a classical attitude to the evidence of the facts.”4 There was far more to the universe than the material dimension that could be measured and categorized. Scientists were called to probe beyond the limits their timid discipline imposed. Flammarion left 10,000 francs, his statue, and his heart to his hometown, Montigny-le-Roi. “I desire that my heart be detached from my breast and offered to the natal place where it beat the first time,” he wrote in his will.5 The mayor of Flammarion’s birthplace expressed joy at the benefaction, decreeing that Flammarion’s bust and heart would be kept in the city hall.

d

Weather prophet Irl Hicks continued to publish his annual almanac. Halley’s Comet, he claimed, had demonstrated the validity of his 246

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approach to meteorology. The comet had disrupted the flows of interstellar energy and moisture, altering the earth’s normal weather patterns. “The advent of Halley’s comet threw the whole solar system out of gear,” Hicks told a reporter from the St. Louis Post Dispatch. “It brought June in March, and had, in turn, converted June into March.”6 He was satisfied that the comet’s passage had proved his theory: terrestrial meteorology was affected by celestial objects. Other scientists disagreed. Reverend Borgmeyer of St. Louis University stated that the comet had nothing to do with the anomalous weather. “Since four or five comets, many of them larger than Halley’s, come within range every year, the weather would be constantly abnormal if they had any effect on it.”7 For hundreds of thousands of true believers, The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac remained the most reliable guide to future weather. Hicks routinely outperformed the forecasters of the National Weather Service, further evidence that his views were correct. “This is a wonderful age, in which ignorance hiding the secrets of nature is being unlocked as never before,” wrote an editor in the Davidson Record, “and Prof. Hicks is the chosen key to unlock many of the mysteries of the starry heavens.”8 In October 1916, Irl Hicks contracted pneumonia. After a six-day fight, the weather prophet succumbed to the disease and died on October 12, 1916. He had just finished checking the proofs for the 1917 edition of his weather almanac. His son, Irl Jr., attempted to keep the business running after his father’s death, but he lacked the gift for long-range forecasting: Word and Works Publishing printed the final edition of The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac in 1921. Although the scientific establishment criticized Hicks’s theories, he was no charlatan. “He had a well-defined theory of cause and effect as to atmospheric and seismic disturbances,” noted one obituary, “in which years of study and investigation had deepened his faith. He had hoped the government would eventually take charge of his work and continue his experiments over a period of years.”9 Not a charlatan, but not correct, either. His work was not continued, and modern meteorologists doubt that our companions in the solar system—including comets—exert any influence on the weather. 247

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d

Many years passed before Edwin Fairfax Naulty’s theory—that comet tails were nothing more than focused light—was debunked. Naulty enjoyed considerable success in the weeks and months after the passage of Halley’s Comet. The failure of astronomers to see the head of the comet as it passed across the face of the sun coupled with the strange movements of the tail appeared to support his theory. He exploited the publicity that came from being proven “correct” by offering public lectures in Washington, D.C., and New York. He then crossed the Atlantic to continue his lecture tour in Europe. Scientists later discovered, contrary to Naulty’s view, that Halley’s Comet (and all comets) possessed a solid nucleus. Astronomical teams missed it because the nucleus was too small for the telescopes of 1910 to resolve. Halley’s core is only five kilometers in diameter, a pinprick against the vast surface of the sun. Modern equipment and space missions to visiting comets have firmly established the fact that comets do have solid heads that sublimate and boil off as gas when they approach the sun. Naulty’s focused light theory was wrong, but no one successfully proved it at the time.

d

Mary Proctor filed her final comet report from the top of the New York Times Building on May 27, 1910. After descending from her perch above the city, she built a career as a science writer and popular lecturer. Proctor wrote sixteen books and hundreds of newspaper articles about astronomy. In many respects she filled the void left by Camille Flammarion’s death, although she never indulged in his more speculative and fanciful departures from the established scientific orthodoxy. Proctor eventually relocated to London. She spent the years of World War II in the city and rode out the German blitz. The bombs, she reported in letters to friends, didn’t bother her at all and “in fact, didn’t even waken her from her sleep.”10 Proctor survived the war. A woman of incredible energy, she lived until she was ninety-six, dying on September 11, 1957. At the time of 248

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her death, she had largely been forgotten. Children of the 1950s would have been far more familiar with the Mary Proctor line of household appliances—steam irons, folding ironing boards, pop-up toasters, and laundry carts—than astronomy’s gossip columnist.

d

Halley’s Comet, having disturbed the earth for a year, grew faint and vanished as it returned to the icy edge of the solar system. The comet was less than impressive during its 1986 return, one of the least spectacular visits in recorded history. The comet will return in July 2061.

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Notes

Introduction 1.  Rev. 6:13 (RSV). 2.  Rev. 6:8 (RSV).

Chapter One: Hairy Stars

 1. Herodotus, Hist. 1.30–33.  2. Herodotus, Hist. 1.86.   3.  See discussion at Christopher Cullen, “Understanding the Planets in Ancient China: Prediction and Divination in the Wu xing zhang,” Early Science and Medicine 16, no. 3 (2011): 219.   4.  Cullen, “Understanding the Planets,” 223.  5. Huainanzi, 3.3.9, in Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four, and Five of the Huainanzi, trans. John Major (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 67.   6.  Richard Stephenson and Kevin Yau, “Oriental Tales of Halley’s Comet,” New Scientist 103 (1984): 30.   7.  Stephenson and Yau, “Oriental Tales,” 30.   8.  Stephenson and Yau, “Oriental Tales,” 30.   9.  Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet (New York: Random House, 1985), 16–18. 10.  Stephenson and Yau, “Oriental Tales,” 30. 11. Pliny, Nat. 2.33.92. Author translation. 12. Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 88. Author translation. 13.  William of Malmesbury, The History of the English Kings, trans. Michael Winterbottom and Rodney Thompson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998–1999), 1065. 14.  Ambroise Paré, cited in Herbert Alonzo Howe, A Study of the Sky (London: MacMillan, 1897), 280. 15.  C. Scott Dixon, “Popular Astrology and Lutheran Propaganda in Reformation Germany,” History 84 (1999): 405. 16.  Jer. 10:2 (RSV). 17.  Matt. 24:29 (RSV).

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Comet Madness 18.  Cited in Dixon, “Popular Astrology,” 412–13. 19.  Georg Caesius, Prognosticon Astrologicum, cited in Dixon, “Popular Astrology,” 416. 20.  Increase Mather, Heaven’s Alarm to the World (Boston: 1682), 19. 21.  Increase Mather, Heaven’s Alarm to the World, 24.

Chapter Two: From Astrology to Astronomy

 1. Aristotle, Meteorologica, trans. H. D. P. Lee, Loeb Classical Library 397 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 1.6.  2. Aristotle, Meteorologica, 1.7.   3.  Alan Cook, “Halley the Londoner,” Notes and Record of the Royal Society of London 47, no. 2 (1993): 167.   4.  Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet (New York: Random House, 1985), 36.   5.  Edmond Halley, cited in Noel Coley, “Halley and Post-Restoration Science,” History Today 36, no. 9 (1986): 11.  6. Edmond Halley, A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets (London: John Senex, 1705), 20. Text modernized by author.   7.  Sagan and Druyan, Comet, 59.  8. Halley, Synopsis, 22.   9.  Lalande, cited in Flammarion, Astronomy for Amateurs, trans. Frances A. Welby (New York: D. Appleton, 1904), 3–4. 10.  Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s Guide to Halley’s Comet (New York: Walker, 1985), 23–24.

Chapter Three: Whither the Comet?

 1.  Lancaster (PA) News Journal, November 18, 1909.  2. Lancaster (PA) News Journal, November 18, 1909.  3. Proctor, “Halley’s Comet,” San Francisco Call, August 23, 1908.  4. Proctor, “Halley’s Comet,” San Francisco Call, August 23, 1908.  5. Proctor, “Halley’s Comet,” San Francisco Call, August 23, 1908.  6. Proctor, “Halley’s Comet,” San Francisco Call, August 23, 1908.   7.  Irl Hicks’s biography is based upon his obituary, printed in Confederate Veteran 25, no. 3 (March 1917), 135.  8. Irl Hicks, The Prisoner’s Farewell to Johnson’s Island, or Valedictory Address to the Young Men's Christian Association of Johnson’s Island, Ohio (St. Louis: Southwestern Book and Publishing, 1872), 8.  9. Hicks, Prisoner’s Farewell, 4. 10.  Irl Hicks, The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac, 1896 (St. Louis: Word and Works Publishing, 1896), 45. 11. Hicks, Almanac, 1896, 44. 12.  Meteorology was still in its infancy; a brief history of the evolution of the Weather Bureau may be found in A. L. Colton, “The Progress of Meteorology in the United States,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 7, no. 40 (1895): 48–53. 13.  Irl Hicks, The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac, 1909 (St. Louis: Word and Works Publishing, 1908), 15.

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Notes 14.  Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, vol. 4 (New York: Harper, 1912), 1509. 15. Paine, Mark Twain, 1511. 16. Paine, Mark Twain, 1511. 17.  Wolf ’s biography is drawn from Hector MacPherson, “Obituary: Max Wolf,” The Observatory 55 (1932): 355–59. 18.  Edward Holden, “The Photography of Planetoids by Professor Max Wolf,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 8, no. 47 (1896): 24. 19.  Mary Proctor, “Gossip of Starland,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), June 6, 1909. 20.  Mary Proctor, “Gossip of Starland,” Buffalo (NY) Courier, August 22, 1909. 21.  Stockton (CA) Evening Mail, August 24, 1909. 22.  Stockton (CA) Evening Mail, August 24, 1909. 23.  Manchester (England) Guardian, September 7, 1909. 24.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, September 16, 1909. 25.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, September 16, 1909. 26.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, September 16, 1909. 27.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, September 16, 1909. 28.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, September 16, 1909.

Chapter Four: The Fabulous Flammarion

  1.  Camille Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” The North American Review 150, no. 398 (1890): 100.   2.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 100–101.   3.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 101.   4.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 101.   5.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 101.   6.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 101.   7.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 102.   8.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 102.   9.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 102–3. 10.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 103. 11.  Flammarion, “How I Became an Astronomer,” 105. 12.  Hector MacPherson, “Camille Flammarion (Obituary),” Popular Astronomy 33 (1925): 654. 13.  Age (Melbourne, Australia), January 28, 1865. 14. Flammarion, Pluralité, 328, trans. and cited in Michael Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750–1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 382. 15.  R. H. Sherard, “Flammarion the Astronomer,” McClure’s Magazine 2 (1894): 571. 16.  Christian Leader (New York), October 4, 1873. 17.  Sherard, “Flammarion,” 573. 18.  Sherard, “Flammarion,” 574. 19.  Sherard, “Flammarion,” 576. 20. Crowe, Extraterrestrial Life, 386.

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Comet Madness 21.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, January 1, 1905. 22.  Sherard, “Flammarion,” 577. 23.  Baltimore Sun, December 6, 1908. 24.  Baltimore Sun, December 6, 1908. 25. Sherard, Flammarion, 577.

Chapter Five: A Dangerous Tail

  1.  “The Return of Halley’s Comet,” Scientific American 101, no. 13 (September 25, 1909): 208.  2. Irl Hicks, The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac, 1910 (St. Louis: Word and Works Publishing, 1909), 28.  3. Hicks, Almanac, 1910, 28.  4. Irl Hicks, The Rev. Irl R. Hicks Almanac, 1909 (St. Louis: Word and Works Publishing, 1908), 15.  5. Hicks, Almanac, 1910, 47.  6. Hicks, Almanac, 1910, 29.  7. Mary Proctor, The Romance of Comets (New York: Harper, 1926), 105.  8. Proctor, Romance, 106.  9. Proctor, Romance, 106. 10.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, September 30, 1909. 11.  San Francisco Call, November 28, 1909. 12.  San Francisco Call, November 28, 1909. 13.  San Francisco Call, November 28, 1909. 14.  Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader, September 30, 1909. 15.  Shawnee (OK) News Herald, October 4, 1909. 16.  Montgomery (AL) Times, October 1, 1909. 17.  Nebraska State Journal, October 1, 1909. 18.  New York Tribune, September 7, 1909. 19.  St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 11, 1909. 20.  Racine (WI) Journal-Times, October 4, 1909. 21.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 22.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 23.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 24.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 25.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 26.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 27.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 10, 1909. 28.  Appleton (WI) Post, October 14, 1909. 29.  Lancaster (WI) Teller, October 7, 1909. 30.  William H. Knight, “Halley’s Comet,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1909. 31.  Knight, “Halley’s Comet.” 32.  Knight, “Halley’s Comet.” 33. This Chicago New World article was reprinted in Catholic Advance (Wichita, KS), October 23, 1909.

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Notes 34.  Catholic Advance (Wichita, KS), October 23, 1909. 35.  St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 14, 1909. 36.  St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 14, 1909. 37.  Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), December 17, 1909; reprint of letter to the editor of Camille Flammarion dated November 28, 1909, and first printed in the New York Herald Paris edition. 38.  Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), December 17, 1909. 39.  Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), December 17, 1909. 40.  Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), December 17, 1909. 41.  Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY), December 17, 1909.

Chapter Six: The Unexpected Visitor

 1. Manchester (England) Guardian, December 1, 1909.  2. Washington Post, December 19, 1909.  3. Washington Post, December 19, 1909.  4. Los Angeles Herald, December 26, 1909.  5. Los Angeles Herald, December 26, 1909.  6. Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1910.  7. Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1910.  8. Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1910.  9. Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1910. 10.  Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1910. 11.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, January 3, 1910. 12.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, January 3, 1910. 13.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, January 3, 1910. 14.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, January 3, 1910. 15.  Topeka (KS) State Journal, January 22, 1910. 16.  Topeka (KS) State Journal, January 22, 1910. 17.  Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1910. 18.  Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1910. 19.  New York Tribune, January 24, 1910. 20.  New York Times, January 26, 1910. 21.  New York Times, January 30, 1910. 22.  Journal and Tribune (Knoxville, TN), January 30, 1910. 23.  Journal and Tribune (Knoxville, TN), January 30, 1910. 24.  San Francisco Examiner, January 2, 1910. 25.  Washington Times, January 20, 1910. 26.  Edwin Emerson, Comet Lore: Halley’s Comet in History and Astronomy (New York: Schilling Press, 1910), 31. 27. Emerson, Comet Lore, 31. 28.  Daily Messenger (St. Albans, VT), February 2, 1910. 29.  All of these examples are from the Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, February 13, 1910. 30.  New York Times, February 2, 1910. 31.  New York Tribune, February 1, 1910.

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Comet Madness 32.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 6, 1910. 33.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, February 27, 1910. 34.  Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1910. 35.  Bisbee (AZ) Daily Review, February 3, 1910.

Chapter Seven: Cyanogen Gas!

 1. Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT), January 28, 1910.  2. Albuquerque (NM) Journal, January 28, 1910.  3. Albuquerque (NM) Journal, January 28, 1910.  4. Albuquerque (NM) Journal, January 28, 1910.  5. Bisbee (AZ) Daily Review, January 29, 1910.  6. Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1910.  7. Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1910.  8. Morning Call (Paterson, NJ), February 3, 1910; however, the Hartford (CT) Courant, February 2, 1910, claims this was printed in the New York Herald on January 15.  9. Bristol (TN) Herald Courier, February 19, 1910. 10.  Bristol (TN) Herald Courier, February 19, 1910. 11.  Bristol (TN) Herald Courier, February 19, 1910. 12.  Bristol (TN) Herald Courier, February 19, 1910. 13.  Bristol (TN) Herald Courier, February 19, 1910. 14.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, February 1, 1910. 15.  Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, February 2, 1910. 16.  Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, February 2, 1910. 17.  Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, February 2, 1910. 18.  Kansas City (MO) Times, February 2, 1910. 19.  Bangor (ME) Daily News, February 5, 1910. 20.  Bangor (ME) Daily News, February 5, 1910. 21.  Bangor (ME) Daily News, February 5, 1910. 22.  Bangor (ME) Daily News, February 5, 1910. 23.  Bangor (ME) Daily News, February 5, 1910. 24.  Washington Post, February 6, 1910. 25.  West Carolina Enterprise (Asheville, NC), February 9, 1910. 26.  Vancouver (BC) Daily World, February 8, 1910. 27.  New York Times, February 8, 1910. 28.  New York Times, February 8, 1910. 29.  Bucyrus (OH) Evening Telegraph, February 9, 1910. 30.  Bucyrus (OH) Evening Telegraph, February 9, 1910. 31.  Bucyrus (OH) Evening Telegraph, February 9, 1910. 32.  Bucyrus (OH) Evening Telegraph, February 9, 1910; Buffalo (NY) Evening News, February 9, 1910; De Kalb (IL) Daily Chronicle, February 9, 1910; Rushville (IN) Daily Republican, February 9, 1910; Marysville (OH) Evening Tribune, February 9, 1910. 33. Boston Globe, February 9, 1910. 34.  Los Angeles Herald, February 10, 1910. 35.  Los Angeles Herald, February 10, 1910.

256

Notes 36.  Los Angeles Herald, February 10, 1910. 37.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 20, 1910. 38.  Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, CO), March 29, 1910. 39.  Washington Times, February 10, 1910. 40. Marion (OH) Star, February 10, 1910. 41.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 9, 1910. 42.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 9, 1910. 43.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 20, 1910. 44.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 20, 1910. 45.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 20, 1910. 46.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 20, 1910. 47.  Oakland (CA) Tribune, February 20, 1910.

Chapter Eight: From Science to Science Fiction

 1. Times (London), February 24, 1910.  2. Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, February 27, 1910.  3. Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, February 27, 1910.   4.  Charles Horne, foreword to Off on a Comet: A Journey through Planetary Space, by Jules Verne, ed. and trans. Charles F. Horne (New York: Vincent Parke, 1911), 1.   5.  One reviewer, American Mary Abbot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1893, was miffed that no representative of the United States appeared in the deliberations that occupied the scientists. Paris and the French monopolized the leading roles in the story.  6. Camille Flammarion, Omega: The Last Days of the World, trans. J. B. Walker (New York: Cosmopolitan Publishing, 1894), 19.  7. Flammarion, Omega, 20.  8. Flammarion, Omega, 23.  9. Flammarion, Omega, 121. 10. Flammarion, Omega, 167. 11. Flammarion, Omega, 167. 12. Flammarion, Omega, 173. 13. Flammarion, Omega, 178. 14. Flammarion, Omega, 185. 15. Flammarion, Omega, 287. 16.  Buffalo (NY) Evening News, March 27, 1893. 17.  Wilmington (DE) Evening Journal, March 14, 1893. 18.  Lexington (KY) Weekly Leader, April 13, 1893, citing Flammarion, Omega, 16–17. 19.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. According to the Lancaster (WI) Teller, May 17, 1910, this story was written by a Paris-based journalist named Sterling-Heilig. 20.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 21.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 22.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 23.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 24.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910.

257

Comet Madness 25.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 26.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 27.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 28.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 29.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 30.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 31.  Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1910. 32.  San Francisco Examiner, March 17, 1910. 33.  San Francisco Examiner, March 17, 1910. 34.  Edwin Emerson, Comet Lore: Halley’s Comet in History and Astronomy (New York: Schilling Press, 1910), 60. 35. Emerson, Comet Lore, 60. 36. Emerson, Comet Lore, 63–66. 37. Emerson, Comet Lore, 23. 38. Emerson, Comet Lore, 23. 39.  Edmond Halley, cited in Emerson, Comet Lore, 113. 40. Emerson, Comet Lore, 120. 41. Emerson, Comet Lore, 121. 42. Emerson, Comet Lore, 126. 43.  Buffalo (NY) Sunday Morning News, April 3, 1910. 44.  Fresno (CA) Morning Republican, April 1, 1910. 45.  This figure is based upon the editions listed for 1910 in the WorldCat database.

Chapter Nine: Aetna and the Wheel of Anxiety

 1. Morning News (Wilmington, DE), March 24, 1910.  2. Boston Globe, March 25, 1910.   3.  In fact, as I wrote this chapter, Mount Aetna was engaged in another spectacular eruption.  4. Charlotte (NC) News, March 27, 1910.  5. Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) Tribune, March 26, 1910.  6. Jackson (MS) Daily News, March 27, 1910.  7. Jackson (MS) Daily News, March 27, 1910.  8. Jackson (MS) Daily News, March 27, 1910.  9. Mountain Echo (Yellville, AR), March 18, 1910. 10.  Nashville Tennessean, March 17, 1910. 11.  Nashville Tennessean, March 17, 1910. 12.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 28, 1910. 13.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 28, 1910. 14.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 28, 1910. 15.  This account of unusual sleep patterns was circulated in an Associated Press release from the city printed in the Waukegan (IL) News-Sun, April 11, 1910, and the Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1910. 16.  Ogden (UT) Standard, April 11, 1910. 17.  Ogden (UT) Standard, April 11, 1910.

258

Notes 18.  Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1910. 19.  Lawton (OK) Daily News-Republican, April 29, 1910. 20.  Lawton (OK) Daily News-Republican, April 29, 1910. 21.  Lawton (OK) Daily News-Republican, April 29, 1910. 22.  Lawton (OK) Daily News-Republican, April 29, 1910. 23.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 21, 1910. 24.  Sibley (IL) Journal, April 1, 1910. 25.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, April 1, 1910. 26.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, April 1, 1910. 27.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, April 1, 1910. 28.  Rushville (IN) Republican, April 4, 1910. 29.  Roanoke News (Weldon, NC), March 17, 1910. 30.  Roanoke News (Weldon, NC), March 17, 1910. 31.  Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1910. 32.  Mansfield (OH) News-Journal, April 16, 1910. 33.  Buffalo (NY) Evening News, May 2, 1910. 34.  Buffalo (NY) Sunday Morning News, May 1, 1910. 35.  Buffalo (NY) Sunday Morning News, May 1, 1910. 36.  Irl Hicks, cited in Muscatine (IA) News-Tribune, May 1, 1910. 37.  Sadly, copies of the 1910 issues of Word and Works are no longer extant. Rev. Hicks’s views are reconstructed from the many newspapers that quoted his articles. 38.  Norton County (KS) News, May 5, 1910. 39.  Norton County (KS) News, May 5, 1910. 40.  Norton County (KS) News, May 5, 1910. 41.  Norton County (KS) News, May 5, 1910.

Chapter Ten: Apocalypse Now

 1. Sibley (IL) Journal, April 1, 1910. The source of Fisher’s quote of Liais is unknown.   2.  Joel 2:31, cited in Sibley (IL) Journal, April 1, 1910.  3. Sibley (IL) Journal, April 1, 1910.  4. Sibley (IL) Journal, April 1, 1910.  5. Charlotte (NC) News, April 4, 1910.  6. Charlotte (NC) News, April 4, 1910.  7. Charlotte (NC) News, April 4, 1910.   8.  See Rev. 6:5.  9. Charlotte (NC) News, April 4, 1910. 10.  Manning (SC) Times, April 6, 1910. 11.  Manning (SC) Times, April 6, 1910. 12.  Manning (SC) Times, April 6, 1910. 13.  Ostensibly a letter to the editor that was signed “Constant Reader,” it appeared on the same day in other West Coast newspapers (see Spokane [WA] Press, April 11, 1910; Tacoma [WA] Times, April 11, 1910), which suggests that it was a syndicated article produced by a newspaper reporter masquerading as a reader. 14.  Sacramento (CA) Star, April 11, 1910.

259

Comet Madness 15.  Sacramento (CA) Star, April 11, 1910. 16.  Hattiesburg (MS) Daily News, April 6, 1910. 17.  Hattiesburg (MS) Daily News, April 6, 1910. 18.  Oklahoma State Capital, April 5, 1910. 19.  Oklahoma State Capital, April 5, 1910. 20.  Ambroise Paré, cited in Emerson, Comet Lore, 23. 21. Emerson, Comet Lore, 23. 22. Emerson, Comet Lore, 24. 23.  John Ramsey, “Mithridates, the Banner of Ch’ih-Yu, and the Comet Coin,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 99 (1999): 199. 24.  Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA), April 6, 1910. 25.  Yakima (WA) Herald, April 6, 1910. 26.  Morning Journal (Lancaster, PA), April 5, 1910. 27.  Morning Journal (Lancaster, PA), April 5, 1910. 28.  Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA), April 2, 1910. 29.  Indianapolis (IN) News, April 6, 1910. 30.  Indianapolis (IN) News, April 6, 1910. 31.  Indianapolis (IN) News, April 6, 1910. 32.  Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1910. 33.  Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1910. 34.  Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1910. 35.  Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1910. 36.  Matt. 10:34 (RSV). 37.  Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1910.

Chapter Eleven: The Death of Kings

 1. Norfolk (NE) Daily News, April 23, 1910.  2. Boston Globe, December 24, 1909.  3. Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1910.  4. Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1910.  5. Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1910.  6. Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1910.  7. Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1910.  8. Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1910.  9. Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1910. 10.  Chicago Tribune, April 17, 1910. 11.  Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1910. 12.  Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1910. 13.  Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1910. 14.  Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1910. 15.  Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1910. 16.  Claremore Progress and Rogers County (OK) Democrat, April 8, 1910. 17.  Spokane (WA) Press, April 10, 1910. 18.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910.

260

Notes 19.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 20.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 21.  Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1910. 22.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, May 7, 1910. 23.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 24.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 25.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 26.  Reading (PA) Times, April 23, 1910. 27.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 28.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 29.  Boston Globe, May 4, 1910. 30.  Buffalo (NY) Courier, May 1, 1910. 31.  Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), May 3, 1910. 32.  Buffalo (NY) Courier, May 6, 1910. 33.  Times (London), May 6, 1910. 34.  St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, May 6, 1910. 35.  St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, May 6, 1910. 36.  Los Angeles Record, May 6, 1910. 37.  Santa Barbara (CA) Independent, May 6, 1910. 38.  Times (London), May 7, 1910. 39.  Manchester (England) Guardian, May 7, 1910. 40.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, May 9, 1910. 41.  Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), May 9, 1910. 42.  Altoona (PA) Times, May 10, 1910.

Chapter Twelve: Rationality Won’t Keep out the Rain

  1.  Jer 10:2; cited in Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  2. Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  3. Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  4. Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  5. Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  6. Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  7. Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 24, 1910.  8. Edwin Emerson, Comet Lore: Halley’s Comet in History and Astronomy (New York: Schilling Press, 1910), 24.  9. Emerson, Comet Lore, 24. 10.  Times (Shreveport, LA), April 24, 1910. 11.  Sun (New York), April 19, 1910. 12.  For a fuller consideration, see Arthur Rosenbaum, “Gentry Power and the Changsha Rice Riot of 1910,” The Journal of Asian Studies 34, no. 3 (1975): 689–715. 13. Indianapolis (IN) News, April 14, 1910; Manchester (England) Guardian, April 19, 1910. 14.  Manchester (England) Guardian, April 19, 1910. 15.  Manchester (England) Guardian, April 19, 1910.

261

Comet Madness 16.  Manchester (England) Guardian, April 19, 1910. 17.  Boston Globe, April 17, 1910. 18.  Manchester (England) Guardian, April 10, 1910. 19.  Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1910. 20.  Topeka (KS) Daily Capital, April 24, 1910. 21.  Topeka (KS) Daily Capital, April 24, 1910. 22.  New York Tribune, May 3, 1910. 23.  New York Tribune, May 3, 1910. 24.  Elyria (OH) Chronicle-Telegram, May 3, 1910. 25.  Tennessean, April 30, 1910. 26.  Nashville Tennessean, April 30, 1910. 27.  Nashville Tennessean, April 30, 1910. 28.  Nashville Tennessean, April 30, 1910. 29.  Santa Cruz (CA) Sentinel, May 5, 1910. 30.  Montreal (Quebec, Canada) Gazette, May 5, 1910. 31.  Raleigh (NC) News and Observer, May 5, 1910. 32.  Raleigh (NC) News and Observer, May 5, 1910. 33.  Raleigh (NC) News and Observer, May 5, 1910. 34.  Raleigh (NC) News and Observer, May 5, 1910. 35.  Boston Globe, November 28, 1956. 36.  Waldemar Kaempffert, “Was the Star of Bethlehem a Comet?” Cosmopolitan, January 1910, 170. 37.  Kaempffert, “Star of Bethlehem,” 170. 38. Waldemar Kaempffert, “The Peril of the Comet,” Saturday Evening Post, April 16, 1910, 4. 39.  There is a slight difference here: Emerson, Comet Lore, 115, places the number at every four million years. 40.  Kaempffert, “Peril,” 50, copying Emerson, Comet Lore, 121. 41.  Waldemar Kaempffert, “The Most Famous of Comets,” Collier’s, April 2, 1910, 22. 42.  Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1910. 43.  Zanesville (OH) Times-Recorder, April 13, 1910. 44. But see Joseph Campbell, Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016), 26, for the argument that the “national panic” was a later creation of the newspapers and wire services that reported the story. 45.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, May 3, 1910. 46.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, May 8, 1910. 47.  The story appeared in several newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1910, and the Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette, April 21, 1910. It was probably distributed by the Associated Press, although none of the newspapers identify the source. Death records from Wheeling confirm that Hutchinson, Springfield, and Flanagan died during this period, but apart from this story, there is nothing to substantiate the claim that these individuals killed themselves to avoid the comet. 48.  Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, April 21, 1910.

262

Notes 49.  Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette, April 21, 1910. 50.  New Castle (PA) Herald, April 19, 1910. 51.  Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette, April 21, 1910.

Chapter Thirteen: Up on a Roof

 1. Mary Proctor, The Romance of Comets (New York: Harper, 1926), 109.  2. In Romance of the Comet, published sixteen years later, Proctor wrote that May 1 was her first night atop the Times Tower. Her memory betrayed her, as her first report from the roof was printed in the April 29 edition of the New York Times. There is a similar discrepancy between the dates she records in her book and the articles she filed in the Times. I have used the dates found in the Times, since these are more likely to be accurate.  3. New York Times, April 29, 1910.  4. New York Times, April 29, 1910.  5. New York Times, April 29, 1910.  6. Proctor, Romance, 110–11.  7. Proctor, Romance, 110–11.  8. New York Times, May 7, 1910.  9. Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), April 16, 1904. 10.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 2, 1910. 11.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 2, 1910. 12.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 3, 1910. 13.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 3, 1910. 14.  Wilkes-Barre (PA) Evening News, May 11, 1910. 15.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 6, 1910. 16.  Boston Globe, May 5, 1910. 17.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 8, 1910. 18.  Buffalo (NY) Times, May 12, 1910. 19.  Buffalo (NY) Times, May 12, 1910. 20.  Buffalo (NY) Times, May 12, 1910. 21.  Lancaster (PA) Intelligencer-Journal, May 11, 1910. 22.  Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1910.

Chapter Fourteen: Cosmic Death Ray 1.  “Concerning the Comet,” Collier’s, May 7, 1910, 13. 2.  “Concerning the Comet,” 13. 3.  “Concerning the Comet,” 13. 4.  “Concerning the Comet,” 13. 5.  “Concerning the Comet,” 13. 6.  Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), May 13, 1910. 7.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 8, 1910. 8.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 8, 1910. 9.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 8, 1910.

263

Comet Madness 10.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 8, 1910. 11.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 8, 1910. 12.  Detroit (MI) Free Press, May 11, 1910. 13.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, May 15, 1910. 14.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, May 15, 1910. 15.  Windsor (Ontario, Canada) Star, May 16, 1910. 16.  Detroit (MI) Free Press, May 11, 1910. 17.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 10, 1910. 18.  Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 10, 1910. 19.  Washington Post, May 11, 1910. 20.  Washington Post, May 11, 1910. 21.  Hobart (OK) Republican, March 17, 1910. 22.  Hobart (OK) Republican, March 17, 1910. 23.  Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1910. 24.  Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1910. 25.  Rock Island (IL) Argus, May 17, 1910; see also Omaha (NE) Daily News, May 11, 1910. 26.  Los Angeles Record, May 11, 1910. 27.  Los Angeles Record, May 11, 1910. 28.  Detroit (MI) Free Press, May 17, 1910. 29.  Detroit (MI) Free Press, May 17, 1910. 30.  Detroit (MI) Free Press, May 17, 1910. 31.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 32.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 33.  Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1910. 34.  Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1910. 35.  Sacramento (CA) Star, May 12, 1910. 36.  New York Tribune, May 19, 1910. 37.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 38.  Buffalo (NY) Enquirer, May 17, 1910. 39.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 13, 1910. 40.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 13, 1910. 41.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 13, 1910.

Chapter Fifteen: Hysteria’s High-Water Mark

1.  Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1910. Darius Green was the fictitious protagonist of John Townsend Trowbridge’s poem, “Darius Green and His Flying Machine” (1869). 2.  Belvidere (IL) Daily Republican, May 16, 1910. 3.  Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1910. 4.  Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1910. 5.  Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1910. 6.  Buffalo (NY) Sunday Morning News, May 15, 1910. 7.  Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1910. 8.  New York Tribune, May 18, 1910.

264

Notes  9. Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 10.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 11.  Sun (New York), May 8, 1910. 12.  Times (London), May 13, 1910. 13.  Sun (New York), May 14, 1910. 14.  Sun (New York), May 14, 1910. 15.  Sun (New York), May 14, 1910. 16.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 17.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 18.  This exchange between James Scarr and a reporter is recorded at Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 19.  Wall Street Journal, May 18, 1910. 20.  Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1910. 21.  Buffalo (NY) Morning Express, May 18, 1910. 22.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 23.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 24.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 25.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 26.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 27.  Evansville (IN) Press, May 18, 1910. 28.  Evansville (IN) Press, May 18, 1910. 29.  South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 18, 1910. 30.  Buffalo (NY) Morning Express, May 18, 1910. 31.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, May 18, 1910. 32.  Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1910. 33.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, May 18, 1910. 34.  Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, May 18, 1910. 35.  Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1910. 36.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 37.  Brooklyn (NY) Citizen, May 18, 1910. 38.  Kansas City (MO) Star, May 18, 1910. 39.  Menasha (WI) Record, May 17, 1910. 40.  Kansas City (MO) Star, May 18, 1910. 41.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 42.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 18, 1910. 43.  Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1910. 44.  Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1910. 45.  Brooklyn (NY) Citizen, May 18, 1910. 46.  Saint Joseph (MO) Gazette, May 16, 1910. 47.  Green Bay (WI) Press, May 18, 1910. 48.  Brainerd (MN) Daily Dispatch, May 19, 1910. 49.  Birmingham (AL) News, May 17, 1910. 50.  Birmingham (AL) News, May 17, 1910. 51.  Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), May 20, 1910.

265

Comet Madness 52.  Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), May 20, 1910. 53.  Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), May 20, 1910. 54.  Sun (New York), May 18, 1910. 55.  Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1910. 56.  Evansville (IN) Press, May 17, 1910. 57.  Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), May 19, 1910. 58.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), May 18, 1910.

Chapter Sixteen: Syzygy

 1. Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1910.  2. Saint Joseph (MO) Gazette, May 16, 1910.  3. New York Tribune, May 18, 1910.  4. New York Tribune, May 18, 1910.  5. St. Louis Star and Times, May 18, 1910.  6. Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, May 19, 1910.  7. Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, May 19, 1910.  8. Tacoma (WA) Times, April 8, 1910.  9. Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 10.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), May 19, 1910. 11.  Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), May 19, 1910. 12.  Sadly, the newspapers that covered this story failed to provide information about the professor’s academic discipline or his home university. 13.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 14.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 15.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 16.  New York Tribune, May 19, 1910. 17.  Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1910. 18.  New York Tribune, May 19, 1910. 19.  New York Tribune, May 19, 1910. 20.  New York Tribune, May 19, 1910. 21.  Mary Proctor, The Romance of Comets (New York: Harper, 1926), 114. 22.  Camden (NJ) Post-Telegram, May 20, 1910. 23.  Camden (NJ) Post-Telegram, May 20, 1910. 24.  Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1910. 25.  Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1910. 26.  Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1910. 27.  Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1910. 28.  Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1910. 29.  South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 19, 1910. 30.  South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 19, 1910. 31.  South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 19, 1910. 32.  Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, May 19, 1910. 33.  Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram, May 29, 1910. 34.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910.

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Notes 35.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 36.  San Bernardino (CA) Daily Sun, May 25, 1910. 37.  Boston Globe, May 20, 1910. 38.  Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910. 39. Proctor, Romance, 115–16.

Chapter Seventeen: The Case of the Missing Tail  1. Mary Proctor, The Romance of Comets (New York: Harper, 1926), 116.  2. South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 19, 1910.  3. Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910.  4. Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1910.  5. Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1910.  6. South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 19, 1910.  7. South Bend (IN) Tribune, May 19, 1910.  8. Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1910.  9. Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 20, 1910. 10.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 20, 1910. 11.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 20, 1910. 12.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 20, 1910. 13.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 20, 1910. 14. Proctor, Romance, 117–18. 15.  Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1910. 16.  Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1910. 17.  Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1910. 18.  Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1910. 19.  Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1910. 20. Proctor, Romance, 122. 21.  Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1910. 22.  Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1910. 23.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 21, 1910. 24.  Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 21, 1910. 25.  New York Times, July 3, 1910. 26.  New York Times, July 3, 1910. 27.  New York Times, July 3, 1910. 28.  New York Times, July 3, 1910. 29.  New York Times, July 3, 1910.

Chapter Eighteen: And We (Mostly) Lived Happily Ever After 1.  Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1910. 2.  Sun (New York), May 19, 1910. 3.  Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1910. 4.  St. Louis (MO) Post Dispatch, May 29, 1910.

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Comet Madness  5. St. Louis (MO) Post Dispatch, May 29, 1910.  6. Los Angeles Record, May 30, 1910.  7. Los Angeles Record, May 30, 1910.   8.  Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet (New York: Random House, 1985), 143–44.  9. Evening News (Wilkes-Barre, PA), May 10, 1910. 10.  Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1910. 11.  Vinita (OK) Daily Chieftain, May 20, 1910. 12.  Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader, August 22, 1910. 13.  Aline (OK) Chronoscope, May 20, 1910. Also interesting is the fact that the Chronoscope does not feature the comet on its front page; in perhaps the least sensational coverage of its passage in the country, the Chronoscope only referred to the celestial object twice: asking the readers if they had looked for it in the skies and noting that a team of scientists from the University of Kansas had collected air samples as the comet passed. 14.  Cherokee (OK) Republican, May 27, 1910.

Afterword

 1. Los Angeles Record, May 30, 1910.  2. Arizona Daily Star, June 26, 1910.  3. Arizona Daily Star, June 26, 1910.  4. Camille Flammarion, Haunted Houses (New York: D. Appleton, 1924), 379.  5. Lima (OH) Republican Gazette, July 4, 1925.  6. St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 10, 1910.  7. St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 10, 1910.  8. Davidson (OK) Record, June 24, 1910.  9. Keowee Courier (Pickens, SC), October 25, 1916. 10.  St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, August 20, 1944.

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Acknowledgments

Although this book is the product of many lonely predawn hours of composition, no author truly writes alone. I have been fortunate to have been employed by Gonzaga University for the past fourteen years and would like to thank my students and colleagues. Although it would be difficult to name everyone who has made Gonzaga so pleasant for me, I would be remiss if I did not mention the friendship of Father Michael Maher and professors Ann Ostendorf, Veta Schlimgen, Kevin O’Connor, and Eric Cunningham. I continue to be influenced, inspired, and supported by Professor Gillian Clark and David Miller, colleagues and friends from my happy years as a British academic. My academic brother, Professor Chris Craun of the University of Central Arkansas, read an earlier draft of this book and gave me the priceless gifts of a thoughtful critique and an honest evaluation. I would also like to thank the team at Prometheus—including Jessica McCleary and Erin McGarvey—who have contributed to this work. Of course, the biggest thanks must be reserved for my editor, Jake Bonar, who saw something in the book and decided to acquire it. Although I have had some success writing books for an academic market, trade publication is a very different world. I owe a great debt to my exemplary agent, Chip MacGregor, who took a gamble on an author with no “platform.” He brought the ship in; I look forward to many future cruises. Finally, I want to thank my friends Bill Beatty and Kevin Griffin for lunches and long walks, and my supportive family: Annie, Gracie, Josh, Liana, Lou Ann, and Richard. And finally, at the center of the circle, my best friend and wife, Mary, to whom this work is dedicated. 269