[ lZ ]

proves this Comet to have moved round the Sunin an Orbit apparently parabolical in such man-ner, that the areæ, reckoning from the center ofthe Sun, are proportionable to the times.

Pursuing the steps of so great a man, I haveendeavoured to accommodate an arithmetical cal-culation thereto, and not without success; forhaving collected from all parts the observationsmade on Comets, I obtained the following Table,the fruit of immense calculations, a small but ac-ceptable present to Astronomers; for these num-bers are sufficient to describe accurately every thingthat has hitherto been discovered concerningComets, by the help alone of a General Tablethat accompanies it; in constructing which I havespared no pains to render it perfect, and I dedicateit to Posterity, imagining it will last as long as theScience of Astronomy.

This Table, which was intended for no personsunskilled in the Mathematics, contains a List of

ing to Polybius, king of Corinth, and brought to that place, wherethe queen brought him up as her own son ; but he afterwards find-ing that he was not her child, went to seek his father atPhocis,and there being a sedition in that city, he unwittingly slew hisfather ; after which Creon, the succeeding king, proclaimedover all Greece, that any man who could expound tbeSphynx’sriddle, should marry his lister JocaJia ; the riddle was, Whatanimal is that which in the morning goes on four feet, at noonwith two, and at night with three? Oedipus undertook it, andsaid it was a man, who in his infancy crawls on hands and feetor on all fours, in his middle age walks on two legs, and whenhe is old uses a staff, or goes on three ; whereupon he obtainedthe prize, and had two children by his mother, Eteocles and Po-lynices, who stew one another, and she slew herself. Henceunfortunate people are said to he of the race of Oedipus, andthe resolvers of difficult problems to be an Oedipus himself.

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