A E R

\

j

A E R

'( T

Upper Alsace, a large somewhat oval stone,which from this extraordinary circumstancewas kept attached to a chain in the cathedralof that place. The weight of the stone wasabout 2 cwts. externally it was rough, dull,and of a dark colour. On being broken, itpresented a close grained texture and a blackish-grey colour, and contained interspersed con-fusedly crystallized grains of yellow pyrites,and of grey scaly non-sulphurous iron oreattractable by the magnet, and therefore ap-proaching to the metallic state. The-specificgravity of the stone was 3.2: it did not givesparks with steel, and was pulverized withoutdifficulty. It was analyzed by professor Bar-thold in the year 1797, but this analysis beingperformed on the entire stone, and not separatelyon the three substances of which it visiblyconsists, we can only gather from the result,that it consists of silex, alumine, magnesia,iron, sulphur and a little lime. The conclusionof the professor is, that the stone of Ensisheim is a common argillo-ferruginous mineral, andthat its traditionary origin is a mere super--stitious fiction.

2. On the 3d July, 1753, a shower of stones,each weighing from one to twenty lbs. andupwards, was said to have fallen during a thun-der-storm at Plann near Tabor in Bohemia .One of these was deposited by Baron Born inhis cabinet and described in his Lithophylaeiumpt. I. though he considered the account oftheir origin to be an idle story ; and the cabinetof Baron Born coming into the possession ofMr. Greville, the specimen in question wasfound to form a part of it.

3. On the 20th of August, 1789, a stone15 inches in diameter fell near Roquefort inthe Landes, during the explosion of a meteor.

It broke through the roof of a cottage andkilled a herdsman and some cattle.

4. In the following year a shower of stonesfell in Armagnac.

5. On the 12th July, 1794, about a dozenstones of various weights and dimensions fellin the neighbourhood of Sienna, in the midstof a most violent thunder-storm, at the feetof several persons, men, women, and children.They fell about eighteen hours after the enor-mous eruption of Mount Vesuvius , but at adistance of at least 250 miles from that vol-cano. One of the largest of these stonesweighed upwards of five lbs. and a piece ofthis was brought by Sir Wm. Hamilton toEngland.

6. On the 17th December, 1795, a stoneweighing 56 lbs. was seen by several personsto fall near Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire : as itfell a number of explosions were heard. Itpenetrated through twelve inches of soil andsix inches of solid chalk-rock, and in buryingitself had thrown a large quantity of earth toa great distance ; when the stone was dug outit was warm, smoaked, and smelt strongly ofsulphur. The stone itself was exhibited inLondon, and a piece of it was procured by SirJoseph Banks .

7. On the 19th December, 1798, abouteight o’clock in the evening, the sky beingperfectly without clouds, a luminous meteorwas observed by the inhabitants of Benares inIndia , and of the parts adjacent, accompaniedby a loud noise resembling irregular platoonfiring. At a village about 1 4 miles from thecity the natives were alarmed not only by thelight and the thundering noise, but with thesound as of heavy bodies falling through the.air, and the roof of one cottage was actuallybroken through by a stone weighing abovetwo lbs. which buried itself to the depth ofseveral inches in the consolidated earth of whichthe floor was formed. The next morning theinhabitants perceived the ground to be piercedand turned up in various places, and in theseon digging to the depth of some inches theyfound stones perfectly similar in external ap-pearance to that which had forced its waythrough the roof of the hut. They were ofvarious sizes, frq.m about three inches to up-wards of four in their largest diameter. Someof these, with a detailed account of the circum-stances above related, were transmitted to Eng-land in the following year.

Thus there happened to be at the same time-in England specimens from four different parts,viz. from Bohemia, from Sienna, from Benares ,and from Yorkshire , of stones said to havefallen from the sky. The date of three at leastof these analogous events, was so recent andthe circumstantial and direct testimony in theirfavour was so powerful, that the narrations,however extraordinary and however they mightseparately have been discredited, could not fail,of exciting a degree of attention proportionedto their importance. One of the-consequencesof this was a chemical examination of thesefour specimens by Ed. Howard, Esq. F.R.S. aand an accurate description of their external-characters and physical properties by CountBournon.

Phil. Trans. 1 802-