oticed between three and four
o'clock; while at the Semnoz Alps between Annecy, Le Bourget, and Le
Leman, it had been detected just as the zenith was paling with the
dawn.

Now it evidently would not do to disregard these observations
altogether. There could be no doubt that a light had been observed at
different places, in succession, at intervals, during some hours.
Hence, whether it had been produced from many centers in the
terrestrial atmosphere, or from one center, it was plain that the
light must have traveled at a speed of over one hundred and twenty
miles an hour.

In the United Kingdom there was much perplexity. The observatories
were not in agreement. Greenwich would not consent to the proposition
of Oxford. They were agreed on one point, however, and that was: "It
was nothing at all!"

But, said one, "It was an optical illusion!" While the other
contended that, "It was an acoustical illusion!" And so they
disputed. Something, however, was, it will be seen, common to both
"It was an illusion."

Between the observatory of Berlin and the observatory of Vienna the
discussion threatened to end in international complications; but
Russia, in the person of the director of the observatory at Pulkowa,
showed that both were right. It all depended on the point of view
from which they attacked the phenomenon, which, though impossible in
theory, was possible in practice.

In Switzerland, at the observatory of Sautis in the canton of
Appenzell, at the Righi, at the Gaebriss, in the passes of the
St. Gothard, at the St. Bernard, at the Julier, at the Simplon, at
Zurich, at Somblick in the Tyrolean Alps, there was a very strong
disinclination to say anything about what nobody could prove--and
that was nothing but reasonable.

But in Italy, at the meteorological stations on Vesuvius, on Etna in
the old Casa Inglesi, at Monte Cavo, the observers made no hesitation
in admitting the materiality of the phenomenon, particularly as they
had seen it by day in the form of a small cloud of vapor, and by
night in that of a shooting star. But of what it was they knew
nothing.

Scientists began at last to tire of the mystery, while they continued
to disagree about it, and even to frighten the lowly and the
ignorant, who, thanks to one of the wisest laws of nature, have
formed, form, and will form the immense majority of the world's
inhabitants. Astronomers and meteorologists would soon have dropped
the subject altogether had