BROADHEAD — METEOR OF DEC. 2 



7> l8 75- 349 



behold their luxuriance ! tall and growing thick, looking like fine 

 meadows ready to be mowed. The Panicum sanguinale (crab- 

 grass) grew luxuriant and thick, and in some fields sufficiently so 

 to cut for hay. The Setaria glauca (foxtail) also formed meadow- 

 like fields. The Spartina, Sorghum, and An dropogoft , grew very 

 tall and formed seed. These prairie grasses I do not remember to 

 have seen in seed for over a half dozen years, nor do I remember 

 them to have grown so tall for as long a time. Two years ago, 

 in Bates County, the grass grew on the prairies only a few feet 

 high ; this year it would average 5 to 5$ feet for miles, and pre- 

 sented a beautiful scene. The most common upland species is 

 Andropogon scopariiis, and is very much valued by people for 

 hay. The reason of the luxuriance of this growth we find in 

 the frequency of moistening rains at the proper season. The 

 presence of strange plants, and the unusual abundance of oth- 

 ers, is owing to the absence of most of the previous known com- 

 mon plants. This absence was caused, in the first place, by the 

 dryness of the season of 1S74, and by the damage the locusts had 

 done, and the consequent failure to produce or ripen many seeds ; 

 in the second place, the locusts, in the spring of 1875, destroyed 

 all the young plants as fast as they appeared above ground and 

 before the time arrived for them to blossom and seed. 



Such causes as the above may in time considerably change the 

 flora of the country. 



The Meteor of December 27, 1875. 

 Bv G. C Broadhead. 



About 9 p.m., Dec. 27, 1875, a brilliant meteor was seen to 

 dart across the northern sky from west to east, being chiefly ob- 

 served in Northwest Missouri, illuminating the heavens, for a few 

 seconds, brighter than the brightest moonlight, and then bursting 

 into fragments; and after an interval of a few minutes a sound 

 was heard resembling distant thunder. 



I find that the explosion was only heard in Northwest Mis- 

 souri, although the meteor was seen as far north as Nevada and 

 Clinton ; also at Lawrence (Kansa-.), Council Bluff's and Iowa 



