from The Family Magazine, 1834

(page 271)

About four o'clock in the morning a large meteoric body, resembling a globe of fire, exploded in the zenith of the heavens, and poured a continuous stream of flaming particles on the sky beneath. The increasing scintillations from this luminous globular body were showered down like drops of falling rain, illuminating the whole visible horizon, and scattering rich rays of light on each airy path as they fell. After this meteoric shower of fiery rain had for some time descended, a luminous serpentine figure was formed in the sky, which, on its explosion, produced a shower of fire equally brilliant and incessant. The inflammable particles then apparently cohering in one ignited mass, rolled up in a ball to the zenith; and from this lofty elevation burst, and shot out streams of electric fire from its luminous orb, which continued to fall until the hour of six in the morning, when the dawning day put an end to their glory and their flight.