During the now brief interval of darkness a
meteoric stone again passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of these
phenomena began to occasion me much apprehension.
April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an angular
breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this had greatly
diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable decrease was
observable; and, on retiring on the night of the sixteenth, I had
noticed an angle of no more than about seven degrees and fifteen
minutes. What, therefore, must have been my amazement, on awakening
from a brief and disturbed slumber, on the morning of this day, the
seventeenth, at finding the surface beneath me so suddenly and
wonderfully augmented in volume, as to subtend no less than
thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular diameter! I was thunderstruck!
No words can give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute
horror and astonishment, with which I was seized possessed, and
altogether overwhelmed.
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