GREAT METEORITE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20650, 23 August 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

GREAT METEORITE.

FALL OF ONE HUNDRED TONS.

QUEER PHENOMENA EXPLAINED.

STORY TOLD AFTER 22 YEARS.

An extraordinary account of certain strange phenomena which were observed in Great Britain on Juno 30, 1908, and of their connection with t. great meteorite which fell in Siberia at that date, is given in a recent number of the Quarterly Journal of tho Royal Meteorological Society. Tho fall of this meteor was not known at tho time, and the phenomena were a complete mystery. The first unusual circumstance was a violent trembling of the barometer—a " succession of four undulations ... lasting about a quarter of on hour and then violently interrupted by a sudden though slight explosive disturbance." At various observatories a sudden increase in light was noted—for tho phenomena took place at night. Thus at Aberdeen after 10 p.m. it suddenly becamo "almost as bright as daylight." At Greenwich the glare was such that it was spoken of as "a false dawn." At Heidelberg " photography was impossible owing to the fogging of the plates." The luminosity of the sky continued quite abnormal on tho following day, and there seemed to be something like a fino dust cloud in it.

What had happened was that a gigantic meteorite, or, as some think, a portion of an unusually solid comet, had struck the Siberian surface at a point almost midway between Irkutsk and tha Arctic circle. Peasants near reported a severe earthquake, accompanied by subtorraneau rumblings. They said that there had been a " terrible explosion," tho foroß of which wus such as to uproot trees for a great distance and tear enormous hole in the forest. In 1927 the area where tho meteor fell was examined. Trees were found to have been blown down for 40 miles from the falling place, which last was like a crater, and in and about it all vegetation had been burnt. It was surrounded by " dozens of funnels," each apparently containing a small meteorite. The total weight of the mass that fell was put at 130 tons. The theory o? those who examined the place was that the meteor carried down before it a cloud of incandescent gas, and that when this intensely hot glowing gas struck tho ground the air was driven outward with extreme violence on all sides.