Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
This visitor created the greatest alarm and apprehension along its
path, the blaze of light being accompanied by repeated explosions and
detonations which sounded like the rumble and roar of cannonading. To
some it appeared like the rattling of heavy teams over a rough, rocky
road; others believed subterranean explosions accompanied the fall.
Horses ran away, stock hurried bellowing to cover, and men, women, and
children crouched in fear or fled before the fiery visitor whose roar
was distinctly heard several minutes after it had disappeared. As the
meteor crossed the Mississippi River the noise of the explosions
increased in severity, and were distinctly heard sixty or seventy
miles from its path, or a distance of one hundred and forty miles
apart. The great ball of flame remained intact as it crossed five or
six States, but as it passed over central Illinois loud detonations
were heard and the light spread out like an exploding rocket with
flashing points. This was the death and destruction of the monster,
and from here it dashed on, a stream or shower of countless meteors
instead of a solid body, forming over Indiana and Ohio a cluster over
forty miles long and five in breadth, showing that while the meteor
had broken up it was still moving with great velocity. How far it
traveled is not known, as it was not seen to strike. Observers in
Pennsylvania saw it rushing in the direction of New York, and people
in that State, where the day was cloudy, heard strange rumblings and
detonations. Houses rattled, and the inhabitants along the line the
meteor was supposed to have passed accredited the phenomena to an
earthquake. Somewhere, perhaps in the forest region of the
Adirondacks, or in the Atlantic, lies the wreck of this meteor. But
one fragment was found. A farmer in Indiana, while watching its
passage heard the thud of a falling object, and going to the spot the
following morning found a small meteorite weighing two thirds of a
pound.
This marvelous body was first observed in all probability in the
northwestern corner of the Indian Territory, possibly sixty or seventy
miles above the earth, and from here it dashed along with repeated
explosions, almost parallel to the earth's surface, disappearing over
New York.
Another remarkable meteor fell into the Atlantic Ocean far out at sea,
July 20, 1860. It resembled the one mentioned above in that it was
accompanied by a marvelous pyrotechnic display. It first appeared in
the vicinity of Michigan, blazing out with a fiery glow that filled
the heavens with light. Cocks crowed, oxen lowed, and people rushed
from their homes along its course over the States of New York,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. When last seen, over the Atlantic, it
had separated into three parts, which followed each other as separate
fire bodies, without the noise which was the accompanying feature of
the Kansas meteor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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