From: (Dan Ihara) Danny.Ihara [at] humboldt.edu
Date: 28 Sep 2010 
Subject: Great Leonid Meteor Storm of 1966

I was an eye-witness of the Great Leonid Meteor Storm of 1966 at Deep 
Springs College, a semi-arid valley in Eastern California bordered by
Nevada. The nearby Chocolate Mountain was one of the sites considered
for a large telescope. The College, the smallest independent college in the
world, 24 student, was founded by L. L. Nunn, the first person to transmit
alternative current long distances for commercial purposes.

I recall that in the constellation of Leo meteors appeared as dots or 
smallish dots while on the horizon meteors appeared as very long streaks.
The effect reminded me of driving into a snow storm with those coming
"head on" being like the dots in constellation Leo, while flakes seen sideways,
though not nearly as long, reminded me of the streaks. I felt as if the Earth,
itself, were moving through space toward the constellation Leo.

Though not like in Star Trek movies entering hyperdrive (or was it warp
speed?), this was REAL and literally mouth dropping spectacular in its own
right. Countless shooting stars each minute, many each second, filled the
sky along with occasional fireballs that left trails. 

We had left the Boarding House, what the commissary was called, and I
don't recall who the first person who was that saw the Meteor Storm (we
called it a meteor shower for quite a while) but someone alerted to the on-
going spectacular display in the sky above. We watched it from the "circle"
the very round central grass in front of where the dormitory was (now
howing the library and administration). It was approximately 3 am and we
watched not speaking for a long time as it slowly decreased in intensity.
We tried to wake others, but some slept through it. 

Blake's poem. 

Before the storm, I had given a talk during the weekly public speaking evening 
sessions and commented on Blake's line from his 1794 poem "The Tyger" 
as being evocative but ultimately cryptic:

"When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears," 

Surely, the constellation Leo was Blake's Tyger, as lions are sometimes 
were called "Tygers" in those days, I discovered later. And the night 
the stars "threw down their spears and watered heaven with their tears", 
surely was an intense meteor shower. Didn't Blake have an interest in 
astronomy from him knowning Halley, the discoverer of the periodicity 
of Halley's comet? 

In the Spring of 1966, Randal Reid (then of Stanford before accepting a
position at University of Chicago and later returning as Dean of Deep
Springs) wrote me back saying I had an original and creative understanding 
of the poem and something to the effect that I had made it my own. 
He did mention there was a Blake etching of a real tiger in a real jungle. 
                                                                              
Daniel Ihara, Ph.D. 


---
<a href="http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/%7Ekeith/poems/tyger.html">The Tyger</a>
By William Blake

 Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
 In the forests of the night, 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies 
 Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
 On what wings dare he aspire? 
 What the hand dare sieze the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art. 
 Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
 And when thy heart began to beat, 
 What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain? 
 In what furnace was thy brain? 
 What the anvil? what dread grasp 
 Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears, 
 And watered heaven with their tears, 
 Did he smile his work to see? 
 Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
 In the forests of the night, 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 

1794