Since Ancient times, comets have been observed with major ones always causing a flurry of questions, comments and speculation. They were often used by Seers to portend momentous events. Early observers described them as flames being fanned by a wind. After about 1900, serious scientific observations have been made, but errors still persist.
First, remove from your memory all those erroneous things about comets that you may have picked up thru the years: Such as Solar Wind, dirty snowball, solid core nucleus, Oort Cloud, etc.
A comet is the visual display of a mass of minute particles or bodies that orbit the Sun in very flat elliptical orbits. They can be described as a swarm of micro asteroids, each in its own individual orbit. The bodies appear to be extremely small in size, some being only a molecule or even an atom! Each body orbits the Sun in its own orbit, with its mass being insufficient to perturb the orbit of any adjacent particles.
A comet originates as a Solar flare, being ejected from the Sun at very high velocities, approaching the Escape velocity. The original shape of a comet is usually a towering column of flame, which shape it maintains until the column experiences perturbation and begins to be reshaped, beginning its elliptical orbit. As the comet recedes from the proximity of the Sun, it loses its heat and its particles cease to glow, often becoming invisible to earth bound observers. The Comet column reaches the limit of its accent, a point called Aphelion. With its upward momentum expended, the particles begin to fall back toward the Sun. If they have experienced sufficient orbit shaping perturbation, their orbits will fall clear of the Sun. If not, the comet will fall back into the Sun and be reabsorbed. Those that barely miss the Sun are dubbed Solar Grazers, skipping along the fiery limb of the sun, resulting in partial or complete re-absorption by the Sun. Some Comets could occur on the far side of the Sun from Earth and fall back into the Sun, completely unobserved!
When the massive cloud of comet particles approach the completion of their orbits, the columnar configuration of the array is frequently restored, and often described as a "tail" or an "anti-tail."
A comet may be considered to be a frozen flame. Spectrographs of comets have been defined as identical to that of the blue flame of a Bunsen burner, hence judged to be an ionized source of light.
As a frozen flame, the ion components of the flame are frozen by their loss of heat. When the Comet body nears the Sun and becomes reheated by the Sun's rays, the particles resume their radiant glow! The particles are thus illuminated, permitting the comet to be seen. The contortions of the comet are the result of the combined orbits of the assembly of particles, each its own orbit. In 2005 a mission has been launched, named "Deep Impact", scheduled to rendezvous with, impact, and photograph comet Tempel 1 at its perihelion on July 4, 2005. The published goal is to create a crater, and photograph the comet's interior! More hogwash! Imagine punching a hole in a column of smoke! Even so, maybe we will learn something!
29 June 2005
HELLO EVERYONE THIS IS THE AL BRUMFIELD WEB PAGE WHERE I'LL TELL YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT MYSELF AND SOME OF MY INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS
I was born August 18, 1928 in Hempstead, Texas which is a farming community near the suburbs of Houston, TX. My parents were David C. & Winnie Kemp Brumfield, school teachers. They were natives of Washington Parish, Louisiana.
At the age of 10 or 12, while living in Merryville, LA, I made my profession of faith in Jesus Christ. I was baptized at Log Landing, a public recreational site on Hoosier Creek, near Merryville, becoming a Southern Baptist. Later, at about the age of 18, I made a study of available Christian faiths and found that we Baptists had a history of adhering to the biblical concept of the new Testament Church and had suffered many persecutions and executions. I concluded that the Baptist faith was the proper denomination for me.
I am very pragmatic. I believe that my "Creator God" can only do right; He being first, He ordered and instituted everything. He wisely set up the laws of cause and effect, whereby the Creation operates automatically without the constant manipulation by his divine hand. Even so God does intervene when it suits his purpose & will, frequently in answer to prayer.
When God created man, he did so in his own way! My God was capable of creating man directly from a clay model, as the scriptures tend to indicate, as he also was capable of creating man in a sequence of life forms; first by creating a series of invertebrates, then, or from them he created a series of vertebrates, until he achieved several tribes of anthropoid apes. From these anthropoid apes, he easily could have created man. Either way, the scriptural account is accurate. To God be the Glory!
God sent his son Jesus to Earth to live, suffer and die for my sins, and the sins of mankind, and guarantee my salvation and eternal life in Heaven! Blessed be the name of the Lord.
I graduated High School 1945 in Merryville, La. where my dad was a teacher of Agriculture. I attended 2 semesters at La. College in Pineville, LA, taking pre-engineering courses. I then attended LSU Baton Rouge, La. for the next 3 semesters, dropped out with a poor scholastic record. I went to work for the State of Louisiana Department of Public Works in Houma, LA and became Office Engineer. I was drafted into the US Army on November 11, 1950, attended Signal Corps Radio Repair School and achieved the rank of PFC. I made good grades in Signal Corps School and consequently was made an instructor! I received an Honorable Discharge on November 12, 1952. I then worked for years as an engineering assistant and/or estimator-sometimes draftsman for state agencies or contractors.
I married in Jan. 1951 Kate Evelyn Hester, and she became the mother of my children, Glenn and Gary Brumfield. Since divorced, I married Mary Catherine Jett, & we had no children. We are living retired in River Ridge, LA in 2005.
In 1953 a native boy goat herder in Israel discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in a cliff cave overlooking the ruins of Qumran on the Dead Sea in Israel. It was established that Qumran had been the ancient home of some of the Essene Sect of Judaism about the time of the Roman defeat of the Jewish revolt (ca. 70 AD). A rush to judgment was made by scholars of Jewish history of that period that the Dead Sea scrolls therefore were belongings of those Essenes. However, a study of available literature on the Essenes shows them to have been meek pacifists, whereas the non-biblical scrolls in the group made frequent references to contemplating war and planning war to avenge and correct the injustices of the land!
Josephus, First Century Jewish historian includes descriptions of another group, for whom he apparently used several various names for different occasions, including Zealots. They were at times warlike religious Extremists, Zealots, hence the term! These Zealots appear to have resembled the Pharisees in their theology, but practiced and received violence in their contact with competing or limiting forces. I contend these Zealots must be considered to be the Authors of the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls and curators of all the Dead Sea Scrolls and who deposited them in the caves while they were hiding out from the Romans and the corrupt temple priests! The proximity of the caves to Qumran was perhaps a coincidence or was an intentional deception ploy, an ideal place to hide in the shadow of the Essenes, to mislead anyone searching for them!
For century preceding or more, leaders and/or members of similar revolutionary Jewish sects were executed or died in battle with forces of the establishment, the High Priesthood, or the government itself!
Several generations of the Macabees family led the Jews in their revolts against the occupying Greek forces, their oppression, and their violations of the Temple in Jerusalem.
In Josephus' Wars Book I, Chapter X, Verses 6 & 7, very young Herod the Great was appointed by his father to be Governor of Galilee. In his first command of law enforcement troops, conducted a search and destroy operation against one Hezekias who led a band of young Jews in pillaging neighboring Syria, particularly along the road to Damascus. Hezekias and many of the young "robbers" as they were called were killed. Herod received the gratitude and acclaim of the Syrians and members of the Caesar’s family. A public clamor however ensued, resulting in Herod's being summoned to appear before the Sanhedrin, a body of the High priests, of the temple in Jerusalem, to answer charges leveled by the Jewish parents of the slaughtered young men. These parents were enough of the main stream Judaism to cause this inquiry! The shrewd young Herod answered the summons, appearing in his Royal purple robes and accompanied by his armed body guards, thus intimidating the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin voted to postpone the hearing until a later time, which later hearing never occurred!
Josephus relates in Wars Book I, Chapter XVI, Verse 2 that after Herod went to Rome and was appointed King of all Judea, he returned to find widespread rejection and rebellion! In order to rule, he had first to seize control! Young Herod’s troops cornered a band of rebels in their dares in cliffs near the Western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A cliff-cave terrain existed there very similar to that of the area of the Dead Sea caves! Herod's soldiers rappelled down the cliff faces, and lowered themselves down the cliffs in elevators to thrust fire into the caves and burn out the fugitives and their families, who preferred death rather than capture. Centuries later and before the modern era, Hebrew scrolls were discovered in caves somewhere in the vicinity. It appears the scrolls were never studied by scholars, and were subsequently lost. I don't remember the source of my information, and now can't check it out now[ If the information could be found, it would be helpful! I would like to have more information on these Zealots!
Herod the Great, in his term as ruler of Judea, had the Temple rebuilt, enlarged, & refurbished. As a tribute to himself, he had installed a golden eagle over one of the principal doors. Two Rabbis, Judas and Matthias, dissented. They taught a group of 40 - 50 young men that this violated the sanctity of the temple. When word went out that Herod was dieing, the group got together, entered the temple, and cut down the golden eagle. Most of them were seized, and carried before Herod for trial. Herod recovered to conduct the trial! The young men were executed, burned alive. Were these young men Zealots? See Antiquities Book XVII, Chapter VI, Verse 3.
At the time of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, He entered the Temple and cast out the Money Changers. They sold sacrificial animals to the public, violating the temple. A commenter has said that at least 200 men would have been required to accomplish this coup. The Temple guards were well armed, and trained to handle any disturbances in the temple! Could Jesus have been accompanied by Zealot followers?
The work is a narrative genealogy of the Southern "White" Brumfields who have lived in La. & Ms. and their ancestors and descendents. They are the descendents of John "Watson" Brumfield, who in the 1760's lived in Orange Co., N. C. and became embroiled in the turmoil of the Regulator Movement. It appears that he was able to circumvent the devious land title system and make profitable land transactions, to the displeasure of the appointed Governor and land charterees. By 1771, Orange Co. was divided in a series of splits, creating Guilford, Randolph, Chatham, Caswell and Wake Counties, further confusing the land titles. Watson's domicile Plantation appears to have been on Beaver Dam Creek at its mouth, above the falls, on Neuse River, in Wake Co., Newlight Township.
After the riots and violence, Gov. Tyron ordered a special court term in March 1771, with the Militia camped at the old Muster Ground in Hillsborough. Sometime in this period of time, Watson Brumfield was released or got out of jail, and moved to S. C. in the mass Exit of local residents.
Land Grant to Watson Brumfield for 200 acres in Green Swamp branch of Black River, Craven Co., S. C. (later Sumter Co., High Hills, etc.) was dated 7-3-1774, survey dated 6-2-1772. This remote area was a hot bed of American patriots! In June 1775, sons John and Reuben Brumfield enlisted in the 5th South Carolina Rangers, Capt. Edwards Richardson's Co. and served 6 months, were discharged. They appear to have re-enlisted in other units!
Included are the descendents of Revolutionary War Soldier John Brumfield, who appears to have married a Catawba American Indian woman, while he was stationed, deployed, in their Reservation, Rock Hill, York Co., S. C. ca. 1780-1781. The Indians were not safe in their treaty created reservation. "White" settlers encroached and harassed the Indian and part-Indian residents. Their animals were killed, their barns burned, their women violated, their crops destroyed, and they themselves frequently murdered! John Brumfield tried to protect his part Indian family! They often moved to escape the encroaching whites, all to no avail! They moved back to North Carolina, perhaps to their old Brumfield neighborhood on Beaverdam Creek, but they were not happy or secure, so they moved back to the Catawba Reservation in York Co., S. C. John encouraged his Brumfield kin to settle as neighbors and be a friendly buffer from hostile whites.
In 1808 The John Brumfield family moved to sparsely settled Spanish West Florida, and settled on the Tchefuncta River about 7 miles North of Folsom, La. Nephew John Brumfield, his wife Margaret Kelly and their 11 children settled a little further North! After the death of several of the half Indian sons, the group broke up, with the widow of Ridley Brumfield moving with her children to Rankin Co., MS, & two of her children's families later moving to Goliad Co. Texas, becoming the West Texas Brumfields. They continued to move Westward, until some of the descendents eventually reached California. Finally, in the 20th century, the descendents who have been able to receive education have become quite successful, in contrast to the earlier generations who did not.
Nephew John Brumfield, b. ca. 1768, m. Margaret (Peggy) Kelly, of about the same age, moved to St. Tammany Parish, La. about the Spring of 1812. They had 10 sons & 1 daughter, and are ancestors of many of our known Brumfield lines in LA & MS most of which we have traced.
I have endeavored to trace my ancestry and kin folk genealogically. As always, these family trees are generated using information passed down by earlier generations, and what we can conclude from history of the area, sometimes incorrectly on both counts! I hope to learn soon how to send e-mail replies!
Albert R. Brumfield BRUMFIELD HISTORIES, LA & MS 10108 St. Paul Ave. River Ridge, La. 70123 E-mail albrumfield@earthlink.net