[meteorite-list] Rochester Meteorite: 2-14-1877 NPA Edwardsville, Il.

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: The Edwardsville Intelligencer
City: Edwardsville, Illinois
Date: Wednesday, February 14, 1877
Page: 3 (of 4)

The Great Meteor of Dec. 21.

     The great meteor of the evening of Dec. 21 was one of the most 
remarkable that has lately been recording in the United States; reports 
concerning it have been received from about one hundred and stations.  From 
a brief study of these it becomes apparent that the meteor entered the 
earth's atmosphere somewhere over the west of Kansas or Nebraska; its true 
course was nearly due east, and it was last seen over the State of New York. 
  Its visible track, as projected upon the earth, is therefore over one 
thousand miles long.  The times of its appearance and disappearance, as 
noted by the observers, are extremely discordant.  The average of about 
forty-five observations, pretty uniformly distributed along its course, 
gives nine hours twenty-six minutes as the Washington mean time, which may 
therefore represent the moment when it was at the middle of its visible 
path.  No definite conclusion can be satisfactorily arrived at with 
reference to its actual velocity in miles from a comparison of the records 
of distant observers; but the observations of the individual observers, 
taken by themselves, give velocities relative to the earth's surface of 
between one and five miles per second, or two to five miles relative to the 
earth's center, and as the meteor was overtaking the earth in its annual 
orbit, its velocity in space relative to the sun was twenty or twenty-five 
miles, its movement being toward a point in latitude 20°, longitude 35°, 
with reference to the plane of ecliptic.  When first seen, the meteor 
appeared to be as large as the moon, but much brighter.  In passing over 
Indiana, its main body divided into two portions, and one of these 
subsequently broke into a hundred fragments, which at first kept together in 
one cluster, but gradually fell behind each other, forming a long train in 
single file, and as such passed over Ohio into New York.  The brightness of 
the meteor was everywhere described as far surpassing bright moonlight.  No 
reliable accounts speak of any noise heard during the visibility of the 
meteor; but in from two to five minutes after its passage a shock resembling 
thunder was heard, which, in the majority of cases, was described as 
tremendous, shaking the ground and houses, and was especially alarming to 
those who, on account of the prevailing cloudiness, were unable to see the 
preceding meteor.  The uniform character of the sound heard at the stations 
shows that it was not due to any violent explosion (properly so-called) but 
was a peculiar acoustic phenomenon, depending on the fact that the portion 
of the line described by the meteor when nearest to any observer became, as 
it were, instantaneously along a length of several miles the origin of a 
series of simultaneous sounds, which, although in themselves comparatively 
feeble, were concentrated into a violent sound when they reached the 
observer's ear.  No records have come to hand of the finding of any 
fragments of this meteor, nor is it likely that any of any size fell to the 
earth, as the main body evidently passed out of the atmosphere when over New 
York, and the small fragments or sparks that were seen to fly off were 
rapidly burned up and disappeared in its train. - Monthly Weather Review.

(end)


Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
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The NPA in the subject line, stands for Newspaper Article. The old list 
server allowed us a search feature the current does not, so I guess this is 
more for quick reference and shortening the subject line now.