2-888-325 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Meteor of Monday Night (Feb. 11), as seen near Hampstead, [London], 1850. The meteor '...had a singular effect on the numerous patients in [the Brompton Hospital for Consumption]. It appeared to rise immediately at the back of the new chapel...and...diffused a light of the most fearful intensity. To those only slightly acquainted with meteorological phenomena the sight was alarming, but to the naturally timid the effect was most distressing. The shock was felt so severely by the matron of the establishment, that a severe fit of illness supervened, from which it is to be regretted that on Thursday she had scarcely recovered...On its first emerging...it was a clear white light; about midway of its flight it assumed the brilliant yellow of the light produced in the combustion of sodium; and before it departed, its colour was of that peculiar pink colour of potassium when burning'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.