3-003-974 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The meteor of 19 November, 1861. Engraving from a sketch made by the family of Mr. James Chapman, lightkeeper of the North Foreland Lighthouse, Thanet. '...its diameter was not much less than that of the moon, which shone brightly at the time in a nearly cloudless sky. The meteor exceeded the moon in brightness, and its tail tapered to a flickering point... it separated into two parts, and in about half a second broke into many luminous fragments. About two minutes after its disappearance Mr. Chapman heard two distinct reports, resembling those of musket-shots, which, perhaps, they were, but which he thinks may have been produced by the sudden immersion into the water of two or more highly heated bodies. Mr. W. Lynn, of the Greenwich Observatory, states that, while looking at the moon at about 9.38 on the same night, his attention was arrested by a most magnificent meteor...carrying behind it a splendid coloured train emitting sparks. It...pursued its course slowly southward below Castor and Pollux, and...broke into three or four fragments and vanished...A writer from Bognor, referring doubtless to the same meteor, says that "its tail had the colours of the rainbow...it exploded, like a rocket, into several balls of fire, and disappeared".' From "Illustrated London News", 1861.