{"id":136,"date":"2004-03-07T20:17:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-07T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=136"},"modified":"2004-03-07T20:17:00","modified_gmt":"2004-03-07T20:17:00","slug":"136","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=136","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The comet that hit Chicago<\/strong><\/p>\n

On our last Amtrak layover in Chicago, last December, Mary and I walked up through the “Miracle Mile” shopping district and saw the ornate municipal water tower<\/a> that stood alone, surrounded by desolation, after the Great Fire of 1871.<\/p>\n

Now comes a suggestion <\/a>that a comet, not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over the kerosene lantern, might have started the fire. From Discover<\/em> magazine via Cronaca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This history<\/a> of the great fire contains a sentence that the comet hypothesis (multiple impacts=multiple fires) could explain: Before tracing the progress of the fire further northward must be mentioned the burning of the water works, and the curious or rather incomprehensible manner in which it caught fire almost two hours before the time that the fire first reached the north division across the main branch.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The comet that hit Chicago On our last Amtrak layover in Chicago, last December, Mary and I walked up through the “Miracle Mile” shopping district and saw the ornate municipal water tower that stood alone, surrounded by desolation, after the Great Fire of 1871. Now comes a suggestion that a comet, not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-136","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4930,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4930","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":0},"title":"Comet ISON Is Coming","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is something to look forward to \u2014 a very bright comet due later this year. (Corrected--thanks, Medeine.)","rel":"","context":"In \"nature\"","block_context":{"text":"nature","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2535,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2535","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":1},"title":"How Would the World Have Ended?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Count on a librarian to find fascinating stuff on the Web\u2014a list of predictions on how the world was going to end, going back to 4490 BCE. (TEOTWAWKI: The end of the world as we know it.) I still have a sentimental fondness for 1973 and Comet Kohoutek.","rel":"","context":"In \"weirdness\"","block_context":{"text":"weirdness","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=weirdness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6998,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6998","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":2},"title":"Was Lugh a Comet?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the trailer for an Irish television \"documentary,\" (in Irish with English subtitles), \"Gods from the Sky,\" which argues that celestial events changed ancient Irish religion. And if that sounds a bit familiar, perhaps you are remembering Immanuel Velikovsky's (1895\u20131979) somewhat similar thesis that the planet Venus entered our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5513,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5513","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":3},"title":"Talking like the Old Ones","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in 2000, I was writing an article about a prescribed fire on the national forest near my home, so I hiked in with the ignition crew. Some point during the day, I heard a radio crackle with the message, \"Come up that little ridge and bring fire with you.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asia\"","block_context":{"text":"Asia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12935,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12935","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":4},"title":"How Smokey Bear Would Celebrate the Summer Solstice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Flames leapt into the June sky, illuminating the attentive faces of the surroundng watchers, while waves of heat rolled off the fire. Around us was darkness, mountains, and forest. I was thirsty, so I walked over the cooler to get some water. On the way back, my boot felt loose,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bears\"","block_context":{"text":"bears","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=bears"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/6-11-2022-fire-sm-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12396,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12396","url_meta":{"origin":136,"position":5},"title":"Will the Temple Return to Florence? A Small Town Watches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In March 2020, when the Masonic temple building up in Florence, Colorado, went on sale, I wrote a post titled \"Start Your Own Magical Lodge in Southern Colorado.\" Maybe I was a little under the spell of the AMC television series Lodge 49. I had the usual fantasies about what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_5392.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_5392.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_5392.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}