Fireball of Nov. 23, 1877, 8^h 24^m, emerging from behind a cloud.
Sometimes there is no visible explosion; the bright nucleus slowly dies out until reduced to a faint spark before final disappearance. Several outbursts of light are often noted; and a curious halting motion has been observed in regard to large slow-moving meteors. I have occasionally remarked a succession of four brilliant flashes given by individual fireballs. These flashes, though sometimes of startling intensity, are somewhat different to the transient vividness of lightning; they come more softly, and remind one forcibly of moonlight breaking suddenly from the clear intervals in passing clouds.
Fireballs differ vastly from shooting-stars in point of size; but their origin is identical. The August meteor-shower yields the smallest shooting-stars and the largest type of fireballs. The great display of meteors on Nov. 27, 1885, not only presented us with large and small members, but it also furnished us with a siderite or piece of iron, presumably from Biela’s Comet. This fell at Mazapil, Mexico; and as considerable interest is attached to the case, I quote a part of the discoverer’s statement:—
“It was at about 9 o’clock on the night of November 27th, when I went out to the corral to feed certain horses: suddenly I heard a loud sizzing noise, exactly as though something red-hot was being plunged into cold water; and almost instantly there followed a somewhat loud thud. At once the corral was covered with a phosphorescent light; while suspended in the air were small luminous sparks, as though from a rocket.... A number of people came running towards me; and when we had recovered from our fright we saw the light disappear, and bringing lanterns to look for the cause found a hole in the ground, and in it a ball of light. We retired to a distance, fearing it would explode and harm us. Looking up to the sky, we saw from time to time exhalations of stars, which soon went out without noise. We returned after a little, and found in the hole a hot stone which we could barely handle; this, on the next day, we saw looked like a piece of iron. All night it rained stars; but we saw none fall to the ground, as they all seemed to be extinguished while yet very high up.”