THE FALLING STAR.
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the
morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the
atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary
falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it
that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on
meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about
ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to him that it fell to earth
about one hundred miles east of him.

I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my
French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved
in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it. Yet
this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space
must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only
looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it
travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many
people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of
it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No
one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night.

But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting
star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common
between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of
finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the
sand-pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the
projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every
direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away.
The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against
the dawn.

The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the
scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its
descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder,
caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured
incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached
the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most
meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still
so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach.
A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling

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