The Great Christ Comet (90 page)

40
 According to a witness from Bowling Green cited by Olmsted, “Observations,” 382.

41
 Ibid., 372, citing Humphreys.

42
 Bias,
Meteors and Meteor Showers
, 43.

43
 Ibid.

44
 Ibid.; Wikipedia, s.v. “Meteoroid,”
http://
en
.wikipedia
.org
/wiki/Meteoroid
#Color
(last modified April 27, 2013).

45
 Peter Jenniskens (personal email message to the author, October 16, 2012) suggested that “fire-colored” points to a predominance of red and yellow meteors (I would add orange). The medium-velocity Geminids (parented by cometary asteroid 3200 Phaethon), travel at 35 km/second and tend to be rich in yellows and oranges. Slower and higher velocity meteors can give rise to these same colors. The slow Taurids also have a high ratio of yellows. The 51 km/second Upsilon Pegasids, 59 km/second Perseids, and 66 km/second (high-velocity) Eta-Aquarids (parented by Halley's Comet) all tend to be yellowish, while the 57 km/second Epsilon-Eridanids are yellow-orange (Jenniskens,
Meteor Showers
, 311). Further, Jenniskens (246) writes of his observations of the 2001 Leonid meteor storm (71 km/second high-velocity meteors): “I was amazed by the bright red and orange colors of many Leonids, green on occasion.” Red light may be emitted by air atoms and molecules as the meteoroids pass through the atmosphere (NASA's Leonid meteor shower page “Leonid Shower,”
http://
leonid
.arc
.nasa
.gov
/meteor.html
[last modified July 6, 2008]).

46
 The stars
ζ
,
ε
,
δ
,
σ
, and
η
in Hydra.

47
 It is possible that a single large meteoroid split into pieces as it collided with Earth's atmosphere, giving rise to the ten meteoric horns and seven heads of Rev. 12:3.

48
 Eyewitness Samuel Strickland of Ontario,
Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West: Or, The Experience of an Early Settler
, 2 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), 2:208–209. According to another (Henry R. Schoolcraft), they “continued to be visible until day light” (Olmsted, “Observations,”
American Journal of Science
26.1 [1834]: 139). Various witnesses speak of fireballs being observed after dawn (idem, “Observations,”
American Journal of Science
25.2 [1834]: 324, 381). Similarly, von Humboldt and Bonpland,
Personal Narrative
, chapter 1.10, recalled that bright Leonid meteors had been visible 15 minutes after sunrise early on November 12, 1799.