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Burning Up the Lines
British astronomer Richard Carrington was having a slow year in 1859. His speciality was the study of sunspots and Sol was having a “quiet” year. In England, on Sept. 1 at 11:38 a.m., he observed two blindingly white lights over a cluster of sunspots. He summoned his colleagues but was disappointed to see that, in his brief absence, the lights had waned. It seemed a shame that so amazing a sight, a five-minute phenomenon, should be seen by so few. He need not have worried.
Just before the next dawn in Britain, the Aurora Borealis exploded into brilliant purples, greens and yellows from the North Pole as far south as Texas as well as over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii.
Farther west, in the Rocky Mountians, gold miners awoke in the middle of the night and started fixing breakfast, mistaking the bright sky to be sunrise. The light was reported as being bright enough to read newspapers by the celestial illumination.
Transmission lines became highly charged, starting fires in telegraph offices and shocking the telegraphers. They immediately disconnected their galvanic batteries but it was found that they still could receive and send messages without them.
This is the sort of event that is weird enough that most (period) folks should have heard about.
At the very least, I'm thinking, many should have a healthy mistrust of those infernal telegraph machines.
Newspaper stories about this would make for a fun read.
Hargis, G., 5 A-1
British astronomer Richard Carrington was having a slow year in 1859. His speciality was the study of sunspots and Sol was having a “quiet” year. In England, on Sept. 1 at 11:38 a.m., he observed two blindingly white lights over a cluster of sunspots. He summoned his colleagues but was disappointed to see that, in his brief absence, the lights had waned. It seemed a shame that so amazing a sight, a five-minute phenomenon, should be seen by so few. He need not have worried.
Just before the next dawn in Britain, the Aurora Borealis exploded into brilliant purples, greens and yellows from the North Pole as far south as Texas as well as over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii.
Farther west, in the Rocky Mountians, gold miners awoke in the middle of the night and started fixing breakfast, mistaking the bright sky to be sunrise. The light was reported as being bright enough to read newspapers by the celestial illumination.
Transmission lines became highly charged, starting fires in telegraph offices and shocking the telegraphers. They immediately disconnected their galvanic batteries but it was found that they still could receive and send messages without them.
This is the sort of event that is weird enough that most (period) folks should have heard about.
At the very least, I'm thinking, many should have a healthy mistrust of those infernal telegraph machines.
Newspaper stories about this would make for a fun read.
Hargis, G., 5 A-1
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