The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-10-18
MOST WONDROUS ARTILLERY
Strange Missiles From the Arsenal Of
Space.
Showers of Stone-Homicidal Hail
stones-Celestial Waterfalls Portent-
Gus Aerolites-Capt. Brentano's Re-
port of an Aerial Cannonade.
from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Gus Aerolltes-Capt. Brentano's Re-
port of an Aerial Cannonade.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Capt. Gregor Brentano, the explorer of
| the Abyssinian Alps, returns with the re-
port of a meteor shower that would al
most seem to confirm the theory that our
| planet consists chiefly of crmbled bomb
! shells from the arsenal OF space.
! During his survey of the Nile tributaries
| the enterprising Italian was often ham
| pered by the mistrust of the natives and
their pardonable suspicion, of a political
| by-purpose in this age of African land
| grabs, but at Wad ell Sheriff, in the valley
of the Atbara river, he was honored by
the voluntary visit of an Arab shek who
appeared in the camp with retinue Of
hakims, or faith cure dervishes. The jun
gle fever was raging in the river bottoms
and the captain expected raid on his
medicine chest, but his visitors had come
on different mission.
Your people honor Allah through one
| of his prophets" said the sheik, land you
are evidently a man of superior erudttton;
can you tell us if it is a sign of divine
wrath or merely freak of the weather
imps. when a mountain load of stones
fall from the sky on a clear day.
please state particulars, friends
said the captain, much relieved by the
scientific turn of the conversations
Then the sheik recounted the strange de-
tails of strange meteor shower, of which
| the explorer had heard vague rumor
before his arrival in the river valley.
| Near JebeI Ishak, on the plateau of Tsen-
ana, four men of his tribe it seems were
following the track of some stray horses
| about a week after the beginning of the
L 1T Of
1890, when they were startled by a sud
| den gust of wind, followed by detonation
! as if caravan load of blasting powder
| had been exploded in their Immediate
! neighborhood. The shock almost knocked
them down, and the first sharp report was
! followd by a prolonged clatter of fall
! ing stones, but of those falling objects
| they could not at first see a trace, though
! the flight of hares and antelOpes con-
! WINGED them that they had not been de-
| ceiVed by the evidence of their senses.
! From the top Of a low ridge they saw
! dust cloud hover about the plain some
/ three miles ahead. and soon after met a
| couple of horsemen of a neighboring tribe,
| who informed them that a short distance
| south of a spring known as the Wad-ll-
| Carib a monstrous mass of hot iron-like
| metal had exploded in the sky and Gov
| cred the plain with its fragments, as II
| mountain had burst in the clouds over
! head One boy and eighteen head Of cat
tie had been killed b the stone shower,
| and some of the larger mass had de-
scended with such violence that they had
/ half buried themselves in the soil of the
| grassy plateau. The searching party hur-
! ried forward, and Capt Brentano before
| the end of that week had chance to
confirm their report from PERSONAL in
| spection Some eight miles south OF the
| Jebel Ishak, the main summit of the At
bara Range, an area of at least five Eng
| fish square miles, was strewn, and IN
! some places literally covered, with masses
of a substance consisting mainly of me-
teoric iron and a CLASSY mineral resem-
| bling obsdian. Without counting smaller
| fragments, Signor Brentano estimates the
number of the larger aerohtes at 10000
and thinks that in a pile they would form
a hilid1OO feet high and quarter of mile
\ in circumference
The morning of that day had been clear
and calm, the rising of the rivers being
| mainly due to the melting of the SHOWS
| in the Abyssinian highlands and at the
time of the stone shower about II a. M
! there were only a few light clouds over
head and not the slightest indication of a
| thunderstorm. The settlers of the imme-
| date vicinity had heard a rush of air like
| that preceding a sudden whirlwind, and
about two seconds after an explosion
that shook the very hills and stampeded
the cattle IN all directions. The ensu-
! ing stone COnnOndde tdSpG0 ABOUT ndlI d
| minute, suggesting the conjecture that
the explosion took place at a hight of
several miles, and that the larger frag-
| ments reached the ground from fifty to
twenty seconds ahead of the meteoric
I dust that continued to fall with admiX-
lures of semi-transparent scales
for quite a while after the aston
ished Arabs had hurried to the spot.
About dozen cows had been killed, and
as many more crippled and felled to the
ground At Belt Kasala, fully fifty miles
further northwest Capt. Brentanos had
been told the preceding week by his guides
that there must have been an earthquake
or some strange accident in the Ishak
mountains as many herders Of the
border hills had heard an explosion much
too loud for the echo of distant cannon
shot
Was that monster meteor a bombshell
from the crater of a lunar volcano, or an
asteroid which some how or other had
been drawn within our planets sphere of
attraction? A few years ago the late
physicist, Helmbolz, was asked his opin-
ion about the future of electric discov-
cries. You must not ask me that ques-
ton" was his reply. Every new inven-
ton in that department of science seems
only calculated to upset established the
cries" The same remark might be ap-
piled to certain branches of astronomy
| Less than a hundred years ago the scien-
lists of Europe were, on the whole, in
clined to doubt the possibility Of stone
showers, or ascribe them to causes OF
terrestrial oragin, but that idea hts since
been disapproved by the testimony OF
undoubtedly competent observers, who
witnessed the descent of aerolites at
great distances from active volcanoes
as on the shores Of the Platten lake, in
Western Hungaria, and in the neighbor-
hood of Mons, Belgium, in 1876.
Tradition had, indeed, preserved the
record of many earlier meteor falls In
the temple of Emesa, Syria, the PhoenI-
clans worshiped the sun under the form OF
a large black stone, supposed TO have
fallen from the sky in broad daylight, and
similar visitors from space were preserved
in the Grand Mosque of Mecca and in the
Castle of Weltenburg, on the Upper Dan
ube, where two large stones, resembling
the refuse Of an iron furnace. had fallen
into a tree close by the camp OF a hunt
ing party.
The reaction against the miracie-mania
OF the Middle Ages had probably some.
thing to do with the reluctance Of philoso-
piers in accepting the truth OF these ira.
ditions but on the morning Of April 20