The Spectacle Described
The closest scientific observations were made by Prof. Denison Olmsted, professor of astronomy at Yale, who wrote in the American Journal of Science:
"The morning of Nov. 13, 1833, was rendered memorable by an exhibition of the phenomenon called shooting stars, which was probably more extensive and magnificent than any similar one hitherto recorded.... Probably no celestial phenomenon has ever occurred in this country, since its first settlement, which was viewed with so much admiration and delight by one class of spectators, or with so much astonishment and fear by another class. For some time after the occurrence, the 'meteoric phenomenon' was the principal topic of conversation in every circle."—Volume XXV (1834), pp. 363, 364.
Prof. Simon Newcomb, the astronomer, declares this phenomenal exhibition of falling stars "the most remarkable one ever observed." (See "Astronomy for Everybody," p. 280.)
This was not merely a display of an unusual number of falling stars, such as Humboldt observed in South America in 1799, or such as we find recorded of other times before and since. It was a "shower" of falling stars, just such a spectacle as one must picture from the words of the prophecy, "And the stars of heaven fell."
The French astronomer Flammarion says of the density of the shower:
"The Boston observer, Olmsted, compared them, at the moment of maximum, to half the number of flakes which we perceive in the air during an ordinary shower of snow."—"Popular Astronomy," p. 536.
This affords us a better idea of the scene than the estimate of 34,640 stars an hour, which was made by Professor Olmsted after the rain of the stars had greatly abated, so that he was able to make an attempt at counting.
Dr. Humphreys, president of St. John's College, Annapolis, said of the appearance at the Maryland capital:
"In the words of most, they fell like flakes of snow."—American Journal of Science, Vol. XXV (1834), p. 372.
Nothing less than this could have presented the counterpart of the prophetic picture.
Thoughtful hearts were solemnized by the unwonted spectacle. Prof. Alexander Twining, civil engineer, "late tutor in Yale College," giving his views as to the nature of the flaming visitants from space, wrote:
"Had they held on their course unabated for three seconds longer, half a continent must, to all appearance, have been involved in unheard-of calamity. But that almighty Being who made the world, and knew its dangers, gave it also its armature—endowing the atmospheric medium around it with protecting, no less than with life-sustaining, properties....
"Considered as one of the rare and wonderful displays of the Creator's preserving care, as well as the terrible magnitude and power of His agencies, it is not meet that such occurrences as those of November 13 should leave no more solid and permanent effect upon the human mind than the impression of a splendid scene."—American Journal of Science, Vol. XXVI (1834), p. 351.
Multitudes felt that the great Creator had spoken to men in this notable wonder of His heavens. Again and again in the records and reminiscences of that time, testimony is borne to the fact that observers were impressed with the likeness of the scene to that described in the divine prophecy as one of the signs of the end of the world.