Chicago fire
At that time, the newspaper said that the fire was caused by a cow knocking over a kerosene lamp and setting the cowshed on fire, and the fire spread all over the city. So the citizens are convinced. However, McGill, the fire chief who directed the fire fighting at the scene, scoffed at this rash conclusion. In his investigation testimony, he said: "There are fires everywhere, and this fire burned all over the city in a short time. If it starts from a house and spreads to the whole city, it is completely impossible. ..... If it is not' Fei Huo', how can the whole city burn into a sea of fire in an instant? " Witnesses also described: "The whole sky seems to be burning, and hot stones are falling from the sky ..." and "Fire and rain are falling from the head." At the same time, people learned that fires broke out in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas and Indiana that night, and some forests and grasslands around Chicago.
How did this fire start? A metal shipyard by the lake was melted into a ball, but there were no other big buildings around. A marble statue in this city has melted. How high is the temperature? The fire in the wooden house is only two or three hundred degrees Celsius, so it is impossible to melt metals and rocks. Hundreds of people escaped from the fire, but strangely, they all fell to their deaths. In addition, the autopsy confirmed that their deaths were not related to the fire. In short, people no longer believe that a cow knocked over an oil lamp and burned down Chicago. What's going on here?
American scholar V. Chembering studied many astronomical archives, and after comparing the relationship between atmosphere and fire, he came to the hypothesis that "meteor shower ignited fire". Comets are one of the sources of meteor showers. The Czech astronomer Vibila discovered one at 1826 and named it "Comet Vibila". Comet Bila circled the sun once in 6.6 years, and when/kloc-0 passed through the earth in 846, the comet's nucleus had split in two. 1852, the two halves of the split nucleus were separated by 2.4 million kilometers and soon disappeared. 187 1 year1year1October 8, one of the comet nuclei passed the earth, and the intersection point was in the United States. As a result, meteor showers scattered, most of them burned out in the atmosphere, and the remaining meteorites fell to the ground, and the temperature was very high enough to melt metals and stones. Chicago was the first to bear the brunt of the fire. There are also "skyfire" splashes in nearby States, causing some forests and grasslands to catch fire at the same time. Meteorites contain a lot of deadly carbon monoxide and cyanide, which can form a "deadly microclimate" in a small area and make people suffocate. Those hundreds of people fled to the suburban roads and just entered the suffocating "death zone".
Although Chembolin's hypothesis is reasonable, scientists don't agree with it, because nothing can confirm Chembolin's hypothesis so far. For example, the meteorite fragments that fell in Chicago at that time, soil and tree samples contaminated by "skyfire" have not been found so far. Besides, the atmosphere is the barrier of the earth's self-defense. Even if the comet material meets the earth, it will not cause catastrophic events. Before the meteorite falls to the ground, it will burn in the sky. Individual meteorites will not cause fire when they fall to the surface, because the high temperature generated by meteorites passing through the atmosphere is limited to the surface layer, and the inside is still cold. How can it cause a fire when it reaches the ground? The Chicago fire is still an unsolved mystery in the world-the mystery of skyfire.