Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 146 No. 4 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

482 ed its account by recording the falling, just before dawn of the 11th, of an extraordi- narily brilliant meteor that flamed with a curious red and green light as it entered the earth’s atmosphere. This meteor did not burn itself out, but fell, still retaining ‘its luminosity, from a point near the zenith, to the horizon. What the farmer saw was a huge fire burning near the center of his field. It was circular in form and about thirty feet in diameter. He was astonished to see it there, but what surprised him more was its peculiar aspect. It was still the twilight of dawn when he reached the field. He beheld the fire first from a point several hundred yards away. As he explained it, the light—for it was more aptly described as a light than a fire—extended in parallel rays from the ground directly upward into the sky. He could see no line of demarkation where it ended at the top. It seemed to extend into the sky an infinite distance. It was, in fact, as though an enormous searchlight were buried in his field, casting its beam of light directly upward. But more than all this, the farmer was struck by the extraordinary color of the light. green. This green color extended upward for perhaps fifty feet, then it shaded into red. The farmer noticed, too, that the fire did not leap and dance with flames, but seemed rather to glow—a steady light like the burning of colored powder. In the morning half-light it threw a weird, un- earthly reddish-green glow over the field. The farmer approached to within twenty feet of the light. He looked to see what was burning, but could not determine, for the ereenish base extended directly down into the ground. He noticed also that it gave. out extraordinarily little heat. The morn- ing was not exceptionally cold, yet he stood within twenty feet of the fire without dis- comfort. I was on the staff of the Boston Observer I reached Brookline about’ at this time. noon of the 11th of November, and went directly to the field where the fire was burning. Nearly a thousand people were there, watching. At the base it was a deep, solid — ball of paper. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. By daylight the fire still held its green and red color, although its light was much less intense. It held its characteristic shape. Though clearly definable, under the rays of the sun it became quite transparent. Look- ing through it, I could see plainly the crowd of people on the farther side of the field. The effect was similar to looking through a faintly tinted glass, except that now I noticed that the light had a sort of crawl- ing motion, like the particles of a heavy fog. The fire came from a hole in the ground; by daylight now the hole could be seen plainly. For some moments I stood silent, awe- struck by this extraordinary spectacle. Then a man standing beside me remarked that there was no smoke. I had not thought of that before, but it was true—indeed, the fire appeared phosphorescent. | “ Let’s get up closer,” said the man be- side me. Together we walked to within ten feet of the outer edge of the fire. We could feel its heat now, although it was not un- comfortable except when it beat directly on our faces. Standing so close, we could see down into the hole from which the light emanated. Lying at the bottom of the hole, perhaps ten feet below the surface, I saw the jagged top of an enormous gray sphere, burned and pitted. This was the meteor—nearly thirty feet in diameter—that in its fall had buried itself deep in the loam of the field. As we stood there looking down into the hole some one across from us tossed in-a It seemed to hang poised a moment, then it shriveled up,. turned black, and floated slowly down until it rested on top of the sphere. Some one else threw a block of wood about a foot long into the hole. I could see it as it struck the top of the sphere. It lay there an instant; then it, too, turned black and charred, but it did not burst into flame. The man beside me plucked at my sleeve. “Why don’t it burn?” he asked. I shook myself loose. ~ “ How should I know?” I anenered im- patiently. comiclbooks.com