Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Extreme Purity Of The Atmosphere Which Constantly
Prevails In The Low Regions During The Dry Season, Counterbalances
The Elevation Of Site And The Rarity Of The Air On The Table-Lands.
The Elevated Strata Of The Atmosphere, When They Envelope The
Ridges Of Mountains, Undergo Rapid Changes In Their Transparency.
The night of the 11th of November was cool and extremely fine.
From
half after two in the morning, the most extraordinary luminous
meteors were seen in the direction of the east. M. Bonpland, who
had risen to enjoy the freshness of the air, perceived them first.
Thousands of bolides and falling stars succeeded each other during
the space of four hours. Their direction was very regular from
north to south. They filled a space in the sky extending from due
east 30 degrees to north and south. In an amplitude of 60 degrees
the meteors were seen to rise above the horizon at east-north-east
and at east, to describe arcs more or less extended, and to fall
towards the south, after having followed the direction of the
meridian. Some of them attained a height of 40 degrees, and all
exceeded 25 or 30 degrees. There was very little wind in the low
regions of the atmosphere, and that little blew from the east. No
trace of clouds was to be seen. M. Bonpland states that, from the
first appearance of the phenomenon, there was not in the firmament
a space equal in extent to three diameters of the moon, which was
not filled every instant with bolides and falling stars. The first
were fewer in number, but as they were of different sizes, it was
impossible to fix the limit between these two classes of phenomena.
All these meteors left luminous traces from five to ten degrees in
length, as often happens in the equinoctial regions. The
phosphorescence of these traces, or luminous bands, lasted seven or
eight seconds. Many of the falling stars had a very distinct
nucleus, as large as the disk of Jupiter, from which darted sparks
of vivid light. The bolides seem to burst as by explosion; but the
largest, those from 1 to 1 degree 15 minutes in diameter,
disappeared without scintillation, leaving behind them
phosphorescent bands (trabes) exceeding in breadth fifteen or
twenty minutes. The light of these meteors was white, and not
reddish, which must doubtless be attributed to the absence of
vapour and the extreme transparency of the air. For the same
reason, within the tropics, the stars of the first magnitude have,
at their rising, a light decidedly whiter than in Europe.
Almost all the inhabitants of Cumana witnessed this phenomenon,
because they had left their houses before four o'clock, to attend
the early morning mass. They did not behold these bolides with
indifference; the oldest among them remembered that the great
earthquakes of 1766 were preceded by similar phenomena. The
Guaiqueries in the Indian suburb alleged "that the bolides began to
appear at one o'clock; and that as they returned from fishing in
the gulf, they had perceived very small falling stars towards the
east." They assured us that igneous meteors were extremely rare on
those coasts after two o'clock in the morning.
The phenomenon ceased by degrees after four o'clock, and the
bolides and falling stars became less frequent; but we still
distinguished some to north-east by their whitish light, and the
rapidity of their movement, a quarter of an hour after sunrise.
This circumstance will appear less extraordinary, when I mention
that in broad daylight, in 1788, the interior of the houses in the
town of Popayan was brightly illumined by an aerolite of immense
magnitude. It passed over the town, when the sun was shining
clearly, about one o'clock. M. Bonpland and myself, during our
second residence at Cumana, after having observed, on the 26th of
September, 1800, the immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter,
succeeded in seeing the planet distinctly with the naked eye,
eighteen minutes after the disk of the sun had appeared in the
horizon. There was a very slight vapour in the east, but Jupiter
appeared on an azure sky. These facts bear evidence of the extreme
purity and transparency of the atmosphere in the torrid zone. The
mass of diffused light is the less, in proportion as the vapours
are more perfectly dissolved. The same cause which checks the
diffusion of the solar light, diminishes the extinction of that
which emanates either from bolides from Jupiter, or from the moon,
seen on the second day after its conjunction. The 12th of November
was an extremely hot day, and the hygrometer indicated a very
considerable degree of dryness for those climates. The reddish
vapour clouded the horizon anew, and rose to the height of 14
degrees. This was the last time it appeared that year; and I must
here observe, that it is no less rare under the fine sky of Cumana,
than it is common at Acapulco, on the western coast of Mexico.
We did not neglect, during the course of our journey from Caracas
to the Rio Negro, to enquire everywhere, whether the meteors of the
12th of November had been perceived. In a wild country, where the
greater number of the inhabitants sleep in the open air, so
extraordinary a phenomenon could not fail to be remarked, unless it
had been concealed from observation by clouds. The Capuchin
missionary at San Fernando de Apure,* (* North latitude 7 degrees
53 minutes 12 seconds; west longitude 70 degrees 20 minutes.), a
village situated amid the savannahs of the province of Varinas; the
Franciscan monks stationed near the cataracts of the Orinoco and at
Maroa,* (* North latitude 2 degrees 42 minutes 0 seconds; west
longitude 70 degrees 21 minutes.) on the banks of the Rio Negro;
had seen numberless falling-stars and bolides illumine the heavens.
Maroa is south-west of Cumana, at one hundred and seventy-four
leagues distance. All these observers compared the phenomenon to
brilliant fireworks; and it lasted from three till six in the
morning.
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