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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At Night
The Cold Increased And The Barometer Rose.
It is very probable,
that the meteors might have been observed more to the east, in
Poland and in Russia.* (* In Paris and in London the sky was
cloudy.
At Carlsruhe, before dawn, lightning was seen in the
north-west and south-east. On the 13th of November a remarkable
glare of light was seen at the same place in the south-east.)
The distance from Weimar to the Rio Negro is 1800 nautical leagues;
and from the Rio Negro to Herrnhut in Greenland, 1300 leagues.
Admitting that the same fiery meteors were seen at points so
distant from each other, we must suppose that their height was at
least 411 leagues. Near Weimar, the appearance like sky-rockets was
observed in the south and south-east; at Cumana, in the east and
east-north-east. We may therefore conclude, that numberless
aerolites must have fallen into the sea, between Africa and South
America, westward of the Cape Verd Islands. But since the direction
of the bolides was not the same at Labrador and at Cumana, why were
they not perceived in the latter place towards the north, as at
Cayenne? We can scarcely be too cautious on a subject, on which
good observations made in very distant places are still wanting. I
am rather inclined to think, that the Chayma Indians of Cumana did
not see the same bolides as the Portuguese in Brazil and the
missionaries in Labrador; but at the same time it cannot be doubted
(and this fact appears to me very remarkable) that in the New
World, between the meridians of 46 and 82 degrees, between the
equator and 64 degrees north, at the same hour, an immense number
of bolides and falling-stars were perceived; and that those meteors
had everywhere the same brilliancy, throughout a space of 921,000
square leagues.
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