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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But What Was My Astonishment, When,
On My Return To Europe, I Learned That The Same Phenomenon Had Been
Perceived On An Extent Of The Globe Of 64 Degrees Of Latitude, And
91 Degrees Of Longitude; At The Equator, In South America, At
Labrador, And In Germany!
I saw accidentally, during my passage
from Philadelphia to Bordeaux,* (* In the Memoirs of the
Pennsylvanian Society.) the corresponding
Observation of Mr.
Ellicot (latitude 30 degrees 42); and upon my return from Naples to
Berlin, I read the account of the Moravian missionaries among the
Esquimaux, in the Bibliothek of Gottingen.
The following is a succinct enumeration of the facts:
First. The fiery meteors were seen in the east, and the
east-north-east, at 40 degrees of elevation, from 2 to 6 a.m. at
Cumana (latitude 10 degrees 27 minutes 52 seconds, longitude 66
degrees 30 minutes); at Porto Cabello (latitude 10 degrees 6
minutes 52 seconds, longitude 67 degrees 5 minutes); and on the
frontiers of Brazil, near the equator, in longitude 70 degrees
west of the meridian of Paris.
Second. In French Guiana (latitude 4 degrees 56 minutes, longitude
54 degrees 35 minutes) "the northern part of the sky was suffused
with fire. Numberless falling-stars traversed the heavens during
the space of an hour and a half, and shed so vivid a light, that
those meteors might be compared to the blazing sheaves which shoot
out from fireworks." The knowledge of this fact rests upon the
highly trustworthy testimony of the Count de Marbois, then living
in exile at Cayenne, a victim to his love of justice and of
rational, constitutional liberty.
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