FIRE-BALLS. 219 



Unhappily, there was no expectant astronomer at once 

 ready to observe and competent to record the great event 

 on the morning of the 24th. The time of its occurrence 

 was also the most unpropitious, so far as the attention of 

 casual observers was concerned. Did a nocturnal fire-ball 

 desire that its splendours should be witnessed by as few 

 persons as possible, it could choose no hour so favourable 

 as about three o'clock in the morning. Those who sit up 

 latest have at last got to sleep ; those who rise the earliest 

 have not yet awakened. It was at seven minutes befora 

 three that such few stragglers as the streets of York still 

 contained saw a pear-shaped ball of fire travelling across 

 the sky. It drenched the ancient city with a flood of 

 light. The superb front of the minster never before 

 glowed with a more romantic illumination. The unwonted 

 brilliancy streamed through every aperture in every win- 

 dow in the city ; every wakeful eye was instantly on the 

 alert ; every light sleeper started up suddenly to know 

 \vhat was the matter. Even those whom the blaze of 

 midnight light had failed to awaken were only per- 

 mitted to protract their slumbers for another minute and 

 a half only until an awful crash, like a mighty peal of 

 thunder, burst over the town, shaking the doors, the win- 

 dows, and even the houses themselves. The whole city 

 was thus alarmed. Every one started at the noise. But 

 that noise was not a clap of thunder. Nor was it pro- 

 duced by an earthquake. It was merely the explosion of 

 the fire-ball which flung itself against the atmosphere after 

 its immeasurable voyage through space. 



Let us imagine a wayfarer in the streets of Newcastle 

 on the same morning. He is struggling on his way in 



