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an elliptic orbit where the difference from
a parabola was imperceptible in the small
portion of the orbit visible to us. A remark-
able case in point was the comet of 1556, of
whose identity with the comet of 1264 there
could be little doubt. Hind wanted to com-
pute the orbit more exactly than Halley had
done. He knew that observations had been
made, but they were lost. Having expressed
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