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scriptions uttering articulate founds, are a few of the tales which we meet with in the annals of ancient Rome: and the lively imagination of Oriental countries has infinitely varied this catalogue of wonders. Of fuch incidents, however, it has frequently been found poffible to give fome explanation confiftent with the ordinary laws of nature, after the narratives have been freed from the fictions with which fuperftition or defign had at first mingled them. But it is fingular with what uniformity the notion of fhowers of ftones has prevailed in various countries, at almost every period of fociety; with how few additions from fancy the story has been propagated; and how vain all attempts have proved, to account, by naturai caufes, for the phenomenon, with whatever modifications it may be credited. Accordingly, philofophers have rejected the fact, and either denied that flones did fall, or affirmed, at least, that if they fell on one part of the earth, they were previoufly elevated from another. The vulgar have as ftedfaftly believed, that they came from beyond the planet on which we live; and every day's experience feems now to increafe the probability, that in this inftance, as in fome others, credulity has been more philofophical than fcepticism.

There are two methods of inquiring into the origin of those infulated maffes which are faid to have fallen in different parts of the earth. We may either collect, as accurately as poffible, the external evidence, the teftimonies of thofe perfons in whofe neighbourhood the bodies are fituated; or we may examine the nature of the fubftances themfelves, and compare them with the kinds of matter by which they are furrounded. The first mode of inveftigation is evidently more liable to error, and lefs likely to proceed upon full and fatisfactory data than the other. But if both inquiries lead to conclufions fomewhat analogous; if both the inductions of fact prefent us with anomalous phenomena of nearly the fame defcription, and equally irreducible to any of the claffes into which all other facts have been arranged, we may reft affured that a difcovery has been made-and the two methods of demonftration will be reciprocally confirmed.

I. The firft narrative which has been offered to the world, under circumftances of tolerable accuracy, is that of the celebrated Gaffendi. He was himfelf the eye-witnefs of what he relates. On the 27th of November, in the year 1627, the iky being quite clear, he faw a burning ftone fall on mount Vaifir, between the towns of Guillaumes and Perne in Provence. It appeared to be about four feet in diameter, was furrounded by a luminous circle of colours like a rainbow, and its fall was accompanied with a noife like the difcharge of cannon. But Gaffendi infpecled the fuppofed fallen one fill more nearly; he found that it weighed 59 lib., was ex

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tremely hard, of a dull metallic colour, and of a specific gravity confiderably greater than that of common marble. Having only this folitary inftance to examine, he concluded, not unnaturally, that the mafs came from fome neighbouring mountain, which had been in a tranfient ftate of volcanic eruption.

The celebrated ftone of Enfifheim is not proved to have fallen, by teftimony quite fo fatisfactory; but there are feveral circumstances narrated with refpect to it, which the foregoing account of Gaffendi wants. Contemporary writers all agree in flating the general belief of the neighbourhood, that on the 7th of November 1492, between eleven and twelve o'clock a. m. a dreadful thunder-clap was heard at Enfifheim, and that a child faw a huge ftone fall on a field fowed with wheat. It had entered the earth to the depth of three feet; it was then removed, found to weigh 265 lib., and expofed to public view. The defect in Gaffendi's relation is here fupplied; for we have the nature of the ground diftinctly defcribed: the natives of the place must have known that in their wheat field no fuch ftone had formerly exifted: but the evidence of its having actually been obferved to fall, is by no means fo decifive as that of Gaflendi.

Other recitals have been given of fimilar appearances, but by no means fo well authenticated, or fo fully examined, although fomewhat nearer our own times. In 1672, one of the members of the Abbé Bourdelot's academy prefented at one of the meetings, a fpecimen of two ftones which had lately fallen near Verona; the one weighed 300, the other 200 lib. The phenomenon, he stated, had been feen by three or four hundred perfons. The ftones fell in a floping direction, during the night, and in calm weather. They appeared to burn, fell with a great noife, and ploughed up the ground. They were afterwards taken from thence, and fent to Verona. This account, it may be obferved, was published in the fame year. Paul Lucas the traveller relates, that when he was at Lariffa in 1706, a stone of 72 lib. weight fell in the neighbourhood. It was obferved, he fays, to come from the north, with a loud hifling noife, and feemed to be enveloped in a fmall cloud, which exploded when the flone fell. It fmelt of fulphur, and looked like iron drofs.

M. De la Lande, in 1756, publifhed an account of a phenomenon very nearly refembling the above, but deficient in feveral points of direct evidence. His narrative, however, deferves our attention, because he feems to have been upon the fpot, and to have examined, with great care, the truth of the circumitances which he defcribes. In September 1753, during an extremely clear and hot day, a noife was heard in the neighbourhood

neighbourhood of Pont-de-Vefle, refembling the discharge of artillery. It was fo loud as to reach several leagues in all directions. At Liponas, three leagues from Pont-de-Vefle, a hiffing found was remarked; and at this place, as well as at Pont-de-Vefle, a blackish mafs was found to have fallen in ploughed ground, with fuch a force as to penetrate half a foot into the foil. The largest of these bodies weighed 20 lib.; and they both alike appeared, on the furface, as if they had been expofed to a violent degree of heat. It may here be obferved, that the fmall depth at which thefe bodies were found in the ploughed land, renders it in the highest degree improbable that they thould have exifted there previoufly to the time of the explofion. To the fame purpose, we may remark the complete' refemblance of the two maffes found at fo great a distance from each other.

In the year 1768, no less than three ftones were presented to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, all of which were faid to have fallen in different parts of France; one in the Maine, another in Artois, and the third in the Cotentin. These were all' externally of the very fame appearance; and Meffis Fougeraux, Cadet, and Lavoifier drew up a particular report upon the first of them. They state, that on the 18th of September 1768, between four and five o'clock in the evening, there was feen near the village of Lucè, a cloud in which a fhort explofion took place, followed by a hifling noife, without any flame; that fome perfons about three leagues from Lucè, heard the fame found, and, looking upwards, perceived an opaque body which was defcribing a curve line in the air, and was about to fall upon a piece of green turf in the neighbouring high road; that they immediately ran to this place, and found a kind of ftone, half buried in the earth, extremely hot, and about 7 lib. weight. This account of the fact was communicated to the academicians by the Abbé Bachelay. But they do not appear to have attached much credit to the whole circumftances of his narrative; for they conclude (chiefly from feveral experiments made to analyfe it) that the ftone did not fall upon the earth, but was there before the thunder-clap, and was only heated and expofed to view by the ftroke of the electric fluid.

Of late years, the attention of philofophers has been more anxiously directed to this curious fubject; and more accurate accounts of the fuppofed fall of ftones have been collected from various quarters. It is not a little fingular, that the narrative which, of all others, was fupported by the very beft and moft direct evidence, was treated by naturalifts near the fpot, with perverfe incredulity, until the refults of chemical analyfis, about ten years after the thing happened, began to operate fome

change

change upon the common opinions relating to fuch matters. We allude to the fhower of ftones, which fell near Agen, 24th July 1790, between nine and ten o'clock at night. First, a bright ball of fire was feen traverfing the atmosphere with great rapidity, and leaving behind it a train of light which lasted about fifty feconds; a loud explosion was then heard, accompanied with fparks which flew off in all directions. This was followed, af ter a fhort interval, by a fall of flones, over a confiderable extent of ground, at various diftances from each other, and of different fizes; the greater number weighing about half a quarter of a pound, but many a vaft deal more. Some fell with a hiffing noife, and entered the ground: others (probably the smaller ones) fell without any found, and remained on the furface. In appearance, they were all alike. The shower did no confiderable damage; but it broke the tiles of fome houses. All this was attefted in a procès-verbal, figned by the magistrates of the municipality. It was farther fubftantiated by the teftimony of above three hundred perfons, inhahitants of the diftrict; and various men, of more than ordinary information, gave the very fame account to their fcientific correfpondents. One of thefe (M. D'Arcet, fon of the celebrated chemift of that name) mentions two additional circumstances, of great im portance, from his own obfervation. The ftones, when they fell upon the houses, had not the found of hard and compact fubftances, but of matter in a foft, half-melted state; and fuch of them as fell upon ftraws, adhered to them, fo as not to be easily feparated. It is utterly impoffible to reconcile thefe facts with any other fuppofition, than that of the ftones having fallen from the air, and in a state of fufion. That they broke the roofs of houses, and were found above pieces of ftraw adhering to them, is the clearest of all proofs of their having fallen from above.

Although nothing can be more pointed and fpecific than this evidence, it yet derives great confirmation from the fimilar accounts which have ftill more recently been communicated. On the 18th December 1795, the weather being cloudy, feveral perfons in the neighbourhood of Captain Topham's house, in Yorkshire, heard a loud noife in the air, followed by a hiffing found, and afterwards felt a fhock, as if a heavy body had fallen to the ground at a little diftance from them. One of these, a ploughman, faw a huge ftone falling towards the earth, eight or nine yards from the place where he flood. It was feven or eight yards from the ground when he first obferved it. It threw up the nould on every fide, and buried itfelf twenty-one inches. This man, affifted by others who were near the fpot at the fame time, immediately raised the flone, and found that it weighed about

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56 lib. Thefe ftatements have been authenticated by the fignatures of the people who made them.

On the 17th March 1798, a body, burning very brightly, paffed over the vicinity of Ville-Franche, on the Saone, accompanied with a hiffing noife, and leaving a luminous track behind it. It exploded with great noise, about twelve hundred feet from the ground; and one of the fhivers, ftill luminous, being obferved to fall in a neighbouring vineyard, was traced. At that fpot, a ftone above a foot in diameter was found to have penetrated about twenty inches into the foil. It was fent to M. Sage, of the National Inftitute, accompanied by a narrative of the foregoing circumstances, under the hand of an intelligent eye-witnefs.

While thefe obfervations in Europe were daily confirming the original but long exploded idea of the vulgar, that many of the luminous meteors obferved in our horizon are maffes of ignited matter, an account of a phenomenon, precifely of the fame defcription, was received from the East Indies, vouched by authority peculiarly well adapted to fecure general refpect. Mr Williams, a member of the Royal Society of London, refiding in Bengal, having heard of an explosion, accompanied by a defcent of ftones, in the province of Bahar, made all poffible inquiries into the circumftances of the phenomenon, among the Europeans who happened to be on the fpot. He learnt, that on the 19th December 1798, at 8 o'clock P. M., a luminous meteor, like a large ball of fire, was feen at Benares, and in different parts of the country; that it was attended with a rumbling, loud noife; and that, about the fame time, the inhabitants of Krakhut, fourteen miles from Benares, faw the light, heard a loud thunder-clap, and, immediately after, heard the noife of heavy bodies falling in their neighbourhood. Next morning, the fields were found to have been turned up in different fpots, which was eafily perceived, as the crop was not more than two or three inches above the ground: and ftones of different fizes, but apparently of the fame fubftances, were picked out of the moift foil, generally from a depth of fix inches. As the occurrence took place in the night, and after the people had retired to rest, no one obferved the meteor explode, or the ftones fall; but the watchman of an English gentleman who lived near Krakhut, brought him one next morning, which he faid had fallen through the top of his hut, and buried itfelf in the earthen floor.

Several of the foregoing narratives mention the material cir cumftance, of damage done to interpofed objects by the ftones fuppofed to have fallen on the earth. In one inftance, still more

diftinct

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