During the first twenty-seven years of the present century, Pons discovered the majority of the comets that were seen. He was a door-keeper at the Observatory at Marseilles, and owing to the teaching and encouragement he received from Thulis, the director, he achieved phenomenal success as a comet-hunter.
Discoveries of comets have rarely been effected in England. This is chiefly to be assigned to two circumstances. First, because the labour involved in seeking for these bodies has never perhaps been pursued to an equal degree and with the same tenacity as it formerly was in France, and as it has recently been in the United States; and second, because the cloud-laden skies of England oppose the successful prosecution of a research in which a clear atmosphere is eminently desirable.
Though comet-seeking does not always produce new discoveries, it is certainly entertaining to those engaged in it; for one of the most agreeable diversions of telescopic work is to scan the firmament with a large-field comet-eyepiece, which exhibits the most pleasing views of star-groups, coloured stars, nebulæ, and telescopic meteors.
The operation of sweeping for comets is attractive from other aspects, though it undoubtedly needs close application, patience, and much caution. The possibility of seeing a comet in the field at any time proves a constant source of allurement to the observer, and sustains his enthusiasm. The glimpsing of a nebulous object, and the expectation (before it has been identified) that it _may_ prove a comet, induces a little excitement which pleasantly relieves the monotony that might otherwise be attached to a sedulous research of this nature; and it is one in which amateurs may suitably engage with a fair prospect of success. Instruments of great power, refinement, and expense are not required. It is rather a work calling for the exercise of patience and acute perception, and for that tireless servitude which those only who have an inborn love for it can maintain.