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And this, be it remembered, is not guess-work, but the revelation of the spectroscope.

The traditions of the ancient Britons[1] tell us of an ancient time, when

“The profligacy of mankind had provoked the great Supreme to send a pestilential wind upon the earth.  A pure poison descended, every blast was death.  At this time the patriarch, distinguished for his integrity, was shut up, together with his select company, in the inclosure with the strong door. (The cave?) Here the just ones were safe from injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose.  It split the earth asunder to the great deep.  The lake Llion burst its bounds, and the waves of the sea lifted themselves on high around the borders of Britain, the rain poured down from heaven, and the waters covered the earth.”

Here we have the whole story told briefly, but with the regular sequence of events: 

1.  The poisonous gases.

2.  The people seek shelter in the caves.

3.  The earth takes fire.

4.  The earth is cleft open; the fiords are made, and the trap-rocks burst forth.

5.  The rain pours down.

6.  There is a season of floods.

When we turn to the Greek legends, as recorded by one of their most ancient writers, Hesiod, we find the coming of the comet clearly depicted.

We shall see here, and in many other legends, reference to the fact that there was more than one monster in the sky.  This is in accordance with what we now know to be true of comets.  They often appear in pairs or even triplets.  Within the past few years we have seen Biela’s comet divide and form two separate comets, pursuing

[1.  “Mythology of the British Druids,” p. 226.]

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their course side by side.  When the great comet of 1811 appeared, another of almost equal magnitude followed it.  Seneca informs us that Ephoras, a Greek writer of the fourth century before Christ, had recorded the singular fact of a comet’s separation into two parts.

“This statement was deemed incredible by the Roman philosopher.  More recent observations of similar phenomena leave no room to question the historian’s veracity."[1]

The Chinese annals record the appearance of three comets—­one large and two smaller ones—­at the same time, in the year 896 of our era.

“They traveled together for three days.  The little ones disappeared first and then the large one.”

And again: 

“On June 27th, A. D. 416, two comets appeared in the constellation Hercules, and pursued nearly the same path."[2]

If mere proximity to the earth served to split Biela’s comet into two fragments, why might not a comet, which came near enough to strike the earth, be broken into several separate forms?

So that there is nothing improbable in Hesiod’s description of two or three aërial monsters appearing at or about the same time, or of one being the apparent offspring of the other, since a large comet may, like Biela’s, have broken in two before the eyes of the people.