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So Benummed we are in our Senses, that albeit God him

selfe Holla in our Eares, wee by our Wills are loath to heere Heedlessness.

him. His dreadfull Pursiuants of Thunder and Lightning ter

rifie vs so long as they have vs in their fingers, but beeing off,

we dance and sing in the midst of our Follies.*

After moralizing at some length the author narrates the event which has inspired his pen :

The name of the Towne is Hatford, some eight miles from Oxford. Upon Wensday, being the ninth of this instant Moneth of April 1628, about five of the clocke in the afternoone this miraculous prodigious and fearefull handy-worke of God was presented. . . It beganne thus: First for an onset went off one great Cannon as it were of thunder alone, like a warning peece to the rest that were to follow. Then a little while after was heard a second: and so by degrees a third, ontill the number of 20 were discharged (or there-abouts) in very good order, though in very great terror. In some little distance of time after this was audibly heard the sound of a Drum beating a Retreate. Amongst all these angry peales shot off from Heauen this began a wonderful admiration, that at the end of the report of euery cracke, or Cannon-thundering, a hizzing Noyse made way through the ayre, not unlike the flying of Bullets from the mouthes of great Ordnance and by the judgment of all the terror-stricken witnesses they were Thunderbolts. For one of them was seene by many people to fall at a place called Bawlkin Greene, being a mile and a half from Hatford: Which Thunderbolt was by one Mistris Greene caused to be digged out of the ground, she being an eye-witnesse amongst many others of the manner of the falling. The form of the Stone is three-square, and picked in the end. In colour outwardly blackish, somewhat like iron: crusted over with that blacknesse about the thicknesse of a shilling. Within it is a soft, of a grey colour, mixed with some kind of minerall, shining like small peeces of glasse.

A "hizzing
Noyse."

A detonating

A detonating fire-ball, no fragments of which came to the ground, was seen on December 21, 1876. From fire-ball. some point in Kansas it sped to Niagara Falls, travel

* See Lockyer's "Meteoritic Hypothesis," pages 5-7.

[graphic][merged small]

ing at the rate of ten miles or more a second.

When

passing over Illinois it exploded, and formed a cluster of

fire-balls.

fire-balls which occupied a space forty miles long and A cluster of five miles broad. Several minutes after the inhabitants of Bloomington saw the stream of fire-balls coursing past overhead, they were startled by a thunder-peal, which fairly shook the town, and led some to believe that a miniature earthquake was in progress. Sound travels a mile in five seconds, and the explosion was heard in Bloomington fifteen minutes after the disruption of the meteor occurred. The sound of the explosion must have traveled 180 miles before it smote upon the ears of the people of Bloomington. Had the fiery visitor come within eighteen miles of Bloomington instead of 180, how appalling the thunderings, which would have been multiplied a hundred fold! Fortunately it was at an altitude of seventy-five miles when it was first seen, and kept at a great height, finally escaping from the air after it had passed Niagara Falls.

Brenham township, Kiowa County, Kansas, was

visited by a shower of meteoric iron at some time be- An iron hail. fore white men had established themselves there. From time to time the early settlers plowed up these curious pieces of iron. Though the people called the strange masses meteors, they did not realize their pecuniary value. A cowboy, however, attempted to carry some off, but his pony was unequal to the task. He therefore buried them, expecting to return at some future time; but death frustrated his plan. A good woman, who was unable to persuade her relatives of the value of these chunks of iron, finally took matters into her own hands, sent for a college professor, sold her meteors, and paid off the mortgage on the farm from the proceeds.

The Madrid fire-ball.

On February 10, 1896, a fire-ball exploded over the city of Madrid, in the middle of the forenoon. The sun was shining brightly, so that the celestial visitor was seen only as a swiftly moving cloud. There was a loud report, which caused a panic in schools and factories, and thus led to the injury of several people. Many windows were shattered, and a partition wall in a building occupied by the United States legation collapsed. *

*So said the newspapers.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIXED STARS.

"Ye stars! bright legions that, before all time, Camped on yon plain of sapphire, who shall tell Your burning myriads, but the eye of Him

Who bade through heaven your golden chariots wheel?”

-Croly.

THE number of stars visible to an average eye on a good night is not far from 2,000. Near the horizon faint stars are blotted out by atmospheric vapors. If we could see all the stars on the celestial sphere as well as we see those near the zenith, 6,000 would be visible without optical aid. A spy-glass brings out thousands otherwise unseen. By the largest telescopes millions are revealed; hundreds of millions are sufficiently bright to record themselves on photographic plates.

The Milky Way or Galaxy has been previously described as the beautiful river of light which flows across the sky, embracing a countless host of faint stars. One. of the most interesting parts of it is in the south, when the summer twilight has faded. The Galaxy there divides for a portion of its length into two roughly parallel streams, and glows in places, as if illuminated by cosmical fires.

Their number.

The Galaxy.

A marvelous complexity of structure is brought out by Complexity photographic plates exposed for several hours. There of structure. are curious curved lines of stars, vast cloud-like forms, long narrow lanes, and dark spots of various shapes. Tree-like forms, similar to those of some solar promi

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