“Three years later, and Europe with its teeming millions went under as mysterious a cloud, which, though not so dense, yet continued longer and awoke a wonder and fear that was widely felt. A haze, for which no known cause was then assigned (though in subsequent years it has been supposed by some to have been volcanic dust), spread through the entire breadth of the atmosphere over all the continent far into Asia. It appeared in Denmark, May 29, reached France, June 14; Italy, June 16; Norway, June 22; Austria and Switzerland, June 23; Sweden, June 24; and Russia, June 25. By the close of the month it had overspread like a pall all Syria, and on July 18, had penetrated the heart of Asia to the Altai Mountains. The obscurity prevailed a greater portion of the summer, imparting to the sun an unnatural color of a dull, rusty red, and causing both the days and nights to wear a weird and gloomy aspect. The atmosphere was highly electric, and nature was greatly convulsed. “Dr. N. Webster in his valuable ‘History of Pestilences,’ vol. ii. p. 274, testifies to the general fear. As it was in America on the occurrence of the ‘dark day,’ so the churches in Europe were crowded with alarmed multitudes supplicating mercy of Heaven. Professor Lalande, the astronomer of France, attempted to quiet the popular fear by ascribing the darkened heavens to exhalations arising out of the earth; but both Webster and Humboldt (Cosmos IV., p. 75) rejected this solution of the mysterious obscurity. Protestant England shared in the alarm it occasioned; and the poet Cowper sang that all the elements ‘preached the general doom.’ It was to this unaccountable obscuration of light that he refers in his ‘Task:’— “ ‘Nature seems with dim and sickly eye To wait the close of all.’ ” —“_Great Consummation._” “And The Stars Shall Fall.” How this sign can be fulfilled is a query with some people, who, perhaps captiously, remark that it would be impossible, since the earth itself is but a small body compared with many of the vast worlds of space. But all such queries are out of date now since the sign itself has already been witnessed. On the night of November 13, 1833, the grandest display of celestial fireworks ever beheld took place. From works of accepted authority we take the following descriptions of this remarkable event:—