Large Meteor Seen in Philadelphia on Thuesday Evening.
Du Philadelphia Bulletin, 25 août.
Vers 19:30 le soir dernier a very unusual celestial display was observed by people who happened at the time to be gazing skyward. A large meteor shot from the northwest toward the north, taking a course slightly downward and then upward, in a sort of serpent form. Starting like a ball of brilliant light, it gradually increased as it sped along, leaving a bright, lustrous tail after it, very much like that of a comet, and finally bursting like a rocket, scattering lots of light from every portion of its circumference like what the pyrotechnists call a pin-wheel. What was somewhat remarkable about this phenomenon was the fact that long after what appeared to be the body of the meteor itself had disappeared, the lustrous tail remained, now increasing and now diminishing in brilliance, for at least ten minutes, when it commenced to gradually fade away. The time occupied between the commencement of the display and the bursting, as it seemed, of the meteor, must have been at least twelve or fifteen seconds, and the whole time up to the disappearance of the tail covered some twenty minutes. The phenomenon gave rise to quite a lively excitement. The people who witnessed it gave various opinions as to its cause, some holding that it was really the expected comet which astronomers had declared would be visible to the naked eye, and others contending that it was merely one of those occasional luminous nebulous displays which are known to occur at this season of the year, and which have little importance in the estimation of scientific folks.
Three or four hours later, at about 11 o'clock, another strange light was seen shooting across the heavens. It was in the form of a bow straightened out, broadest in the middle, and tapeing toward each end, being about two degrees in the widest part. It stretched from near the northwestern horizon considerably beyond the zenith in the south-east about fifty degrees. It seemed to be composed of a mass of thin vapor, appearing at one moment intensely bright, and in the next fading away, only to reappear more brilliantly than ever. It appeared to proceed from the same spot as the more brilliant meteor earlier in the evening. In about half an hour it had entirely disapeared.
The Rocky Mountains In a Second Twilight of Chromatic Shades?Superstitious of the Mountaineers.
Cheyenne Correspondence of the Omaha Herald.
Your paper having recently taken quite an interest in all that pertains to the growth of the agricultural and mineral resources of Wyoming, will not, I presume, refuse a little space to the feeble descriptions of a meteorological phenomena that is now transpiring each evening in the skies above the Rocky Mountains in that romantic territory.
Since the recent solar eclipse they have, upon the summit of the Rocky Mountain cahin, what the inhabitants call a "second twilight," so brilliant with colors of mist, shade and firelights as to pain the eye in its steady gaze upon them and to leave an impression on the mind that will never be obliterated.
Just as the sun is about to set, a heavy mist gathers on the mountain, and growing dense and denser, it shuts out entirely the last expiring rays of that luminous body ; then all is darkness, or nearly so, for almost thirty minutes ; when, all at once, the heavens become lit up from the horizon all around, far up to a small circle in the centre, with a livid glare of the most dazzling chromatic colors, seeming as though a tremendous bonfire was ablaze below, throwing its glare in clear and steady flame above. This gorgeous and fearfully beautiful scene lasts for nearly an hour, then steals quietly away ; ...