EXTRAORDINARY METEOR.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1350, 16 November 1860, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY METEOR.

The New York papers contain diagrams and lengthy accounts of a very brilliant meteor which appeared on the 20th July. The ' Herald' alludes to it as follows : — "At About a quarter before 10 o'clock on Friday evening, the atmosphere being very sultry, and no perceptible motion in the air, a light cloud appeared in the west, from which a blue-tinted luminous globule shot out, which at first glance suggested to the spectators the idea of an artificial firewoik. Instantly it lost its globular form, bursting, like an immense skyrocket, into four portions. The first two are represented by one of our correspondents as resembling brilliantly illuminated chandeliers, with innumerable jet* of purple flame ; the others were globular, and comparatively small, appearing rather as the tails of the fint. " They maintained their relative distance as they flew athwart the sky from west to east, occupying in their flight something like a, minute. Whether they vanished in air or fell on the land or se* we have not yet ascertained. About a minute after their passage * detonation was heard, as from a piece of ordnance; but whether it proceeded from the bursting of the meteor is a matter of conjecture. One very curious optical delusion which it gave rise to is worthy of remark. To the spectators it appeared to be no higher than from a quarter to half a mile, and to be almost directly over their heads ; and yet, when the fact is considered that it was witnessed under almost identical circumstances at Philadelphia, some 90 miles south-west of New York ; at New Haven, 80 miles eatt ; at Barnegat, 40 miles south ; and at Newburg, on the Hudson, 60 milei north, it will be perceived that the idea of its insignificant elevation was most delusive. It must have been at an immense elevation to have been neen »t these widely remote points, and to have presented at all of them the same appearance of being so nearly in the zenith. -* It is also to be remarked, in connection with the meteor, that for the previous two or three nights brilliant flashes of the aurora borealis have illumined the northern skies — a most unusual display in the dogdays, and one which we only look for in the late fall and winter months. The aurora is generally supposed to indicate clear cold weather, but in this case it hot been followed by an oppressively sultry state of the atmosphere, thus contradicting our previously conceived notions. It is also very closely connected in point of time with the solar eclipse, which took place last Wednesday morning."