about one in the morning
of the 18th of March
The steam yacht , Diana , bound for the Azores and points south , was two days out from Miami when the great meteor fell into the Atlantic . On the after deck , leaning over the rail , watching the moonlit waters , stood Phillip Parkinson , owner of the yacht . A bacteriologist of international fame was Parkinson , on an early vacation to recuperate from the effects of a strenuous winter of research . Nervous , rather high-strung , he had been unable to sleep ; at about one in the morning of the 18th of March , he had come up on deck . He had stood there for about an hour when suddenly there appeared in the sky above him , a meteor , a great disc of blue-white incandescence . It seemed to be rushing straight down toward him ; instinctively he leaped back , as though to avoid the fiery missile . As the constantly expanding disc flashed through the hundred miles of Earth 's atmosphere , the ocean , as far as eye could see , became as light as day .