Keeler, February 5. - Only small fragments have been found of the great meteor which floated across the sky last Thursday night. Parties have searched the country between Belleville and Candelaria thoroughly but the only evidences of the great blazing stone are broken branches of trees and small pieces of burnt rocks. These latter were found buried in the ground to a depth of several inches, showing the great force of explosion each gave them impetus. It is certain the main body of the meteor did not fall between Belleville and Candelaria, as was supposed. A wild report that a hole 100 feet in diameter, caused by the meteor, had been found, proved without foundation. Reports from various surrounding points at which the phenomenon was observed, has led to select two theories. Many think the force of explosion was so great that no large fragments of the aerolite remained. The finding of so many small pieces of meteoric rock lends color to this theory.
Last Thursday night at 10:50 local time a brilliant meteor, which illuminated the heavens within a large radius, passed over this portion of Nevada from the west and took a southerly course. The heavenly messenger left a fiery violet tinted tail behind it and gave out a hissing sound as it flew through space, like that made by a sky rocket when making its ascent. It was visible throughout central California and western Nevada, and was about five seconds in passing out of sight. Virginia, Carson, Genoa, and Bodie papers each allege that it disappeared in their immediate vicinity, but they are all mistaken. It fell to the earth in the neighborhood of Belleville-Candelaria and its collapse caused intense excitement in those hamlets.
A Letter from Professor Newton on the Candelaria Meteor of February 1, 1894
" I am very much obliged to you for the advance manuscript copy of Mr. Perrine' s interesting report of observations of the Candelaria meteor of February 1 , and for your invitation to add thereto, if I wish, comments of my own. The accounts are conflicting, as Mr. Perrine says, and they cannot all be satisfied by any assigned path of the meteor. This is usually the case with meteor observations, and attempts to reconcile conflicting statements are often an entire failure. Men frequently combine what they see of the meteor path with what they infer about it in such manner that we cannot separate the two. But I think some trustworthy and valuable conclusions can be gotten from the accounts so carefully collected by Mr. Perrine, and the meteor was of such an extraordinary character that it is worth while to deduce all we can from the stories. Allow me first, however, to add thereto an interesting account of the meteor, taken from a letter to me from Mr. Charles A. King of Candelaria. He says :
" I will describe what I saw and heard. I live at the railroad depot, a mile from town and 500 feet above it. At 10h 7m p. m. (railroad time), February 1, sky clear and cloudless, thermometer 16 above zero, a brilliant white flash of light coming from the west illuminated the whole sky. So bright was it that the flame of a lamp by which I was reading appeared dim as it would in sunlight. As near as I could judge, ten seconds after the flash was a deafening explosion, of a crashing, tearing nature, but very brief. This was followed by a rumbling sound resembling a train. Read more
The Great Meteor of 1894 occurred on February 1st. It was first sighted crossing the California coast near Napa, then over Sacramento and reported at multiple locations until it "exploded" over the town of Candelaria in Nevada. Read more
Quinn Canyon meteorite
In 1894, southern Nevadans saw a fireball streaking across the sky, then felt a violent thud that tossed some from their beds. Did that bump in the night come from the hunk of iron a local prospector found in 1908? Read more
Latitude: (WGS84): 38° 10' North, Longitude: 115° 45' West