e imagined, strongly roused by intelligence
of this celestial display on the Western continent."--_"The
Gallery of Nature" (London, 1852), p. 141._

This writer called it "by far the most splendid display on
record."--_Id., p. 139._

Another English astronomical writer of more recent date says:

"Once for all, then, as the result of the star fall of 1833,
the study of luminous meteors became an integral part of
astronomy."--_Clerke, "History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth
Century," p. 329._

This same work describes the extent of the display as follows:

"On the night of Nov. 12-13, 1833, a tempest of falling stars
broke over the earth. North America bore the brunt of its
pelting. From the Gulf of Mexico to Halifax, until daylight
with some difficulty put an end to the display, the sky was
scored in every direction with shining tracks and illuminated
with majestic fireballs."--_Page 328._

The Spectacle Described

The closest scientific observations were made by Prof. Denison Olmsted,
professor of astronomy at Yale, who wrote in the _American Journal of
Science_:

"The morning of Nov. 13, 1833, was rendered memorable by an
exhibition of the phenomenon called shooting stars, which was
probably more extensive and magnificent than any similar one
hitherto recorded.... Probably no celestial phenomenon has ever
occurred in this country, since its first settlement, which was
viewed with so much admiration and delight by one class of
spectators, or with so much astonishment and fear by another
class. For some time after the occurrence, the 'meteoric
phenomenon' was the principal topic of conversation in every
circle."--_Volume XXV (1834), pp. 363, 364._

Prof. Simon Newcomb, the astronomer, declares this phenomenal exhibition
of falling stars "the most remarkable one ever observed." (See
"Astronomy for Everybody," p. 280.)

This was not merely a display of an unusual number of falling stars,
such as Humboldt observed in South America in 1799, or such as we find
recorded of other times before and since. It was a "shower" of falling
stars, just such a spectacle as one must picture from the words of the
prophecy, "And the stars of heaven fell."

The French astronomer Flammarion says of the density of the shower:

"The Boston observer, Olmsted, compared them, at the moment of
maximum, to half th