Note 50 — Chapter XIV · COMETS AND COMET-SEEKING.

Newton conjectured that comets formed “the aliment by which suns are sustained,” his opinion being that the former bodies finally coalesced with the suns round which they revolved. He remarked:—“I cannot say when the Comet of 1680 will fall into the Sun,—possibly after five or six revolutions; but whenever that time shall arrive, the heat of the Sun will be raised by it to such a point that our globe will be burnt and all the animals upon it will perish.”