Crossword-Solution: COMETIC 7 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 13

The sculls, as far as they were immersed, were like bars of glistening silver; under them passed the fish, leaving cometic tails; each coral clump was a lamp, lending its lustre till the great lagoon was luminous as a lit-up ballroom.

The rays of the sun in passing through or near the nucleus are so modified as to become visible in their further progress through the cometic atmosphere, while all the rest remain invisible.

What we call the tail is merely a radius of the cometic atmosphere made visible, and as the comet moves through space, only different portions of the atmosphere come in sight, in obedience to the ordinary laws of light.

The sword shaped tails, at variance with the common theory, can be accounted for by supposing a slight difference in density or material in the cometic atmosphere, which will deflect the light as seen.

The sphere at the perihelion would envelop the sun, and as a noticeable reduction is sometimes found in its so-called tail, the cometic atmosphere may impart to the sun at that time whatever is necessary to its use.