[...] the most sublime phenomenon of shooting stars, of
which the world has furnished any record, was witnessed throughout the United States on the morning of the 13th of November,
1833. The entire extent of this astonishing exhibition has not
been precisely ascertained, but it covered no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface. [...]
[...] the first
appearance was that of fireworks of the most imposing grandeur,
covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads of fire-balls,
resembling sky-rockets. Their coruscations were bright, gleaming and incessant, and they fell thick as the flakes in the early
snows of December.
To the splendors of this celestial exhibition, the most brilliant sky-rockets and fireworks of art bear less relation than the twinkling of the most tiny star to the broad
glare of the sun. The whole heavens seemed in motion, and suggested to some the awful
grandeur of the image employed in the apocalypse, upon the opening of the sixth seal,
when "the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely
figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind."
Burritt, Elijah Hinsdale, The Geography of the Heavens, grt. enl., rev., and ill. by Hiram Mattison, New York: Mason Brothers; Cincinnati: Rickey, Mallory & Co., 1860, p. 157.
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