New York Times
New York City, NY.
Monday,
July 23, 1860Page: 5
THE GREAT METEOR OF FRIDAY NIGHT
The meteor of Friday night which astonished all our citizens who happened to be unhoused at the time was seen, it would appear, far over the country, and was, in its way, a most astonishing phenomenon. We have had the Japanese (?) and the Zouaves. The Great Eastern still abides with us, and the Prince of Wales in coming. The foreign and domestic excilements, however, were, are, and are to be, of this earth, earthy, or of the sea, nautically. A celestial, or at least a supraterranean visitant was needed, and the meteor came. The rule of parallax, evidently not understood by our ordinary street sight-seers, proves, according to the reports from various distances, North, South, and West, (we have heard nothing yet from ships, East, at sea,) that the globe of fire with the glowing trail of light must have been from thirty to forty miles above the surface of our planet. That it could not have been much more elevated, the explosion which accompanied its disappearance would assure us, the atmosphere being rather less than fifty miles high, and the transmission of sound being of course limited to that region. It was seen in Philadelphia at about 9 1/2 o'clock, say the papers of that city-rose suddenly from the horizon, about the size of the full moon, traversed an easterly line, dropping fire in its course, like a rocket, till it passed away in the southeast, like a red ball, about twice the size of the planet Mars. It was seen, under similar circumstances, at Danville, Penn., at New-Haven, along the whole line of the Hudson River, at Buffalo, Utica, Albany and Troy, also at Newport, Rhode Island, and undoubtedly at other places from which we have no report - at each place, appearing to be at no great distance above the spires of the churches. Just so the moon, at her full, appears to shine directly over every street in every city, and over every ship at sea, in those portions of the earth which she illuminates.
We append a few of the communications we have recieved respecting the extraordinary visitor. The provincial papers in this and adjoining States come to us filed with accounts of the marvel. It is amusing to read of some of the events to come which some of them predict therefrom. The old superstition of "portents dire," it would seem is not yet quite effete(?).
