While the meteor crossed the northwestern (Prairie) township of Keokuk County, it was seen to divide into two unequal parts, a small eastern portion continuing its motion northeastward, but soon losing its brilliancy, and a seven to fourteen times greater western portion which remained intensely brilliant until its final explosion. It was the smaller portion of the meteor which produced the meteorite shower in Iowa and Amana Townships of Iowa County; hence it is highly probable that several thousand pounds of meteorite, some in pieces of over a hundred pounds, will yet be found east and north of the final explosion of the main portion of the meteor, that is, in Florence Township of Benton County, in Fairfax Township of Linn County, and in Lenox Township of Iowa County. In fact, observers have seen "large glowing coals," as they call them, fall in this region where Linn, Benton, and Iowa Counties meet.
Willie dividing, the meteor produced two tremendous detonations, and, after the main body had crossed the railroad at Marengo, it produced three terrific detonations, which shook the buildings for miles around, so as to create in the residents the fear of an earthquake.
Besides these detonations, the meteor was accompanied with a variety of other sounds, heard over a circular area of 150 miles in diameter. To those farthest away from the orbit it sounded as if their chimney was on fire, and an astonishingly large number of persons missed the sight of the meteor because they hurried to their stoves and flues to check the apparent fire. Those nearer the track heard a prolonged rumbling and rolling sound, which they compare to that produced by the running of a train over a high and long trestle-bridge. Others, still nearer the region of final explosion, hurried up-stairs, thinking that the plastering had fallen on the heads of their children sleeping in the upper story. Many in this same region heard the clank and clatter of heavy, hard bodies striking against each other, or against the hard ground.
II. The Iowa County Meteorites.—The meteorites thus far found occur in an elliptical area stretching from Amana von der Höhe, in Amana Township, to Boltonville, in Iowa Township, a distance of eight miles. The minor axis of this ellipse measures about three miles. The entire meteorite-field of Iowa County thus far covers, therefore, an area of eighteen square miles. In the northwest the largest pieces are found; toward the southeast, the meteorites become gradually smaller. This agrees with their derivation from the minor portion of the meteor. As the entire drift was eastward, the resistance of the air would, to some extent, produce precisely this distribution of the meteorites according to size.
The principal village near the meteorite region is Homestead,[1] a
- ↑ I gratefully acknowledge many personal obligations to residents of this place, especially to Messrs. William Moerschel, Frederick Moerschel, Geisler, Fehr, Dickel, Noë, and others.
