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FOR THE ANTHOLOGY.

NATURAL HISTORY.

WE avail ourselves of the present curiosity universally excited by the meteor which lately appeared in Weston, in Connecticut, to re-publish from a celebrated English journal the following interesting sketch of all the facts and opinions, which have of late years been given to the world, with respect to this very singular branch of natural history. In our next number we shall publish Professor Silliman's account of the late phenomenon in Connecticut.]

THE histories of all nations, in early times, abound with fabulous accounts of natural phenomena. Showers of blood and of flesh; battles of armed men in the air; animals of different descriptions uttering articulate sounds, 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 such

incidents, however, it has frequent ly been found possible to give some explanation consistent with the ordinary laws of nature, after the narratives have been freed from the fictions with which superstition or design had at first mingled them. But it is singular with what unformity the notion of showers of stones has prevailed in various countries, at almost every period of society; with how few additions from fancy the story has been propagated; and how vain all attempts have proved, to account, by natural causes, for the phenomenon, with whatever modifications it may be credited. Accordingly, philosophers have rejected the fact, and either denied that stones did fall, or affirmed, at least, that if they fell on one part of the earth, they were previously elevated from another. The vulgar have as stedfastly believed, that they came from beyond the planet on which we live; and every day's experi

ence seems now to increase the probability, that in this instance, as in some others, credulity has been more philosophical than scepticism.

There are two methods of inquiring into the origin of those insulated masses, which are said to have fallen in different parts of the earth. We may either collect, as accurately as possible, the external evidence, the testimonies of those persons, in whose neighbourhood the bodies are situated; or we may examine the nature of the substances themselves, and compare them with the kinds of matter by which they are surrounded. The first mode of investigation is evidently more liable to errour, and less likely to proceed upon full and satisfactory data, than the other. But if both inquiries lead to conclusions somewhat analogous; if both the inductions of fact present us with anomalous phenomena of nearly the same description, and equally irreducible to any of the classes into which all other facts have been arranged, we may rest assured that a discovery has been made-and the two methods of demonstration will be reciprocally confirmed.

1. The first narrative, which has been offered to the world under circumstances of tolerable accuracy, is that of the celebrated Gassendi. He was himself an eye-witness of what he relates.

On the 27th of November in the year 1627, the sky being quite clear, he saw a burning stone fall on mount Vaisir, between the towns of Guillaumes and Perne in Provence. It appeared to be about four feet in diameter, was surrounded by a luminous circle of colours like a rainbow, and its fall was accompanied with a noise like the discharge of cannon. But Gassendi inspected the supposed fallen stone still more nearly; he found that it weighed 59 lib., was extremely hard, of a dull metallick colour, and of a specifick gravity considerably greater than that of common marble. Having only this solitary instance to examine, he concluded, not unnaturally, that the mass came from some neighbouring mountain, which had been in a transient state of volcanick eruption.

The celebrated stone of Ensisheim is not proved to have fallen, by testimony quite so satisfactory; but there are several circumstanses narrated with respect to it, which the foregoing account of Gassendi wants. Contemporary writers all agree in stating the general belief of the neighbourhood, that on the 7th of November 1497, between eleven and twelve o'clock a. m. a dreadful thunder-clap was heard at Ensisheim, and that a child saw a huge stone fall on a field sowed with wheat. It had entered the earth to the depth of three feet; it was then removed, found to weigh 260 lib. and exposed to publick view. The defect in Gassendi's relation is here supplied; for we have the nature of the ground distinctly described; the natives of the place must have known that in their wheat field no such stone had formerly existed: but the evidence of its having actually been observed to fall, is by

no means so decisive as that of Gassendi.

Other recitals have been given of similar appearances, but by no means so well authenticated, or so fully examined, although somewhat nearer our own times. In

1672, one of the members of the Abbe Bourdelot's academy presented at one of the meetings a specimen of two stones, which had lately fallen near Verona; the one weighed 300 the other 200 lib. The phenomenon, he stated, had been seen by three or four hundred persons. The stones fell in a sloping direction, during the night, and in calm weather. They appeared to burn, fell with a great noise, and ploughed up the ground. They were afterwards taken from thence, and sent to Verona. This account, it may be observed, was published in the same year. Paul Lucas the traveller relates, that when he was at Larissa in 1706, a stone of 72 lib. weight fell in the neighbourhood. It was observed, he says, to come from the north, with a loud hissing noise, and seemed to be enveloped in a small cloud, which exploded when the stone fell. It smelt of sulphur, and looked like iron dross.

M. De la Lande, in 1756, published an account of a phenomenon very nearly resembling the above, but deficient in several points of direct evidence. His narrative, however, deserves our attention, because he seems to have been upon the spot, and to have examined with great care the truth of the circumstances, which he describes. In September 1753, during an extremely clear and hot day, a noise was heard in the neighbourhood of Pont-de-Vesle, resembling the discharge of artillery. so loud as to reach several leagues in all directions. At Liponas,

It was

three leagues from Pont-de-Vesle, hot, and about 7 lib. weight.

was

a hissing sound was remarked; and at this place, as well as at Pontde-Vesle, a blackish mass found to have fallen in ploughed ground with such a force, as to penetrate half a foot into the soil. The largest of these bodies weighed 20 lib.; and they both alike appeared, on the surface, as if they had been exposed to a violent degree of heat. It may here be observed, that the small depth at which these bodies were found in the ploughed land, renders it in the highest degree improbable that they should have existed there previously to the time of the explosion. To the same purpose we may remark the complete resemblance of the two masses, found at so great a distance from each other. In the year 1768, no less than three stones were presented to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, all of which were said to have fallen in different parts of France; one in the Main, another in Artois, and the third in the Cotentin. These were all externally of the very same appearance; and Messrs. Fougeraux, Cadet, and Lavoisier, drew up a particular report upon the first of them. They state, that on the 18 of September 1768, between four and five o'clock in the evening, there was seen near the village of Luce, a cloud in which a short explosion took place, followed by a hissing noise, without any flame; that some persons about three leagues from Luce, heard the same sound, and, looking upwards, perceived an opaque body which was describing 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 stone, half buried in the earth, extremely

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 circumstances of his narrative; for they conclude (chiefly from several experiments made to analyse it) that the stone did not fall upon the earth, but was there before the thunder-clap, and was only heated and exposed to view by the stroke of the electrick fluid.

Of late years, the attention of philosophers has been more anxiously directed to this curious subject; and more accurate accounts of the supposed fall of stones have been collected from various quarters. It is not a little singular, that the narrative which, of all others, was supported by the very best and most direct evidence, was treated by naturalists near the spot with perverse incredulity; until the results of chemical analysis, about ten years after the thing happened, began to operate some change upon the common opinions relating to such matters. We allude to the shower of stones, which fell near Agen, 24th July 1790, between nine and ten o'clock at night. First, a bright ball of fire was seen traversing the atmosphere with great rapidity, and leaving behind it a train of light which lasted about fifty seconds; a loud explosion was then heard, accompanied with sparks, which flew of in all directions. This was followed, after a short interval, by a fall of stones, over a considerable extent of ground, at various distances from each other, and of different sizes; the greater number weighing about half a quarter of a pound, but many a vast deal more. Some fell with a hissing noise, and entered the

ground others (probably the smaller ones) fell without any sound, and remained on the surface. In appearance, they were all alike. The shower did no considerable damage; but it broke the tiles of some houses. All this was attested in a procès-verbal, signed by the magistrates of the municipality. It was farther substantiated by the testimony of above three hundred persons, inhabitants of the district; and various men of more than ordinary information gave the very same account to their scientifick correspondents. One of these (M. D'Arcet, son of the celebrated chemist of that name) mentions two additional circumstances, of great importance, from his own observation. The stones, when they fell upon the houses, had not the sound of hard and compact substances, but of matter in a soft, half-melted state; and such of them as fell upon straws, adhered to them, so as not to be easily separated. It is utterly impossible to reconcile these facts with any other supposition, than that of the stones having fallen from the air, and in a state That they broke the roofs of houses, and were found above pieces of straw adhering to them, is the clearest of all proofs of their having fallen from above. Although nothing can be more pointed and specifick than this evidence, it yet derives great confirmation from the similar accounts which have still more recently been communicated. On the 18th December 1795, the weather being cloudy, several persons in the neighbourhood of Captain Topham's house, in Yorkshire, heard a loud noise in the air, followed by a hissing sound, and afterwards felt a shock, as if a heavy body had fallen to the ground at a little

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distance from them. One of these, a ploughman, saw a huge stone falling towards the earth, eight or nine yards from the place where he stood. It was seven or eight yards from the ground when he first observed it. It threw up the mould on every side, and buried itself twenty-one inches. This man assisted by others, who were near the spot at the same time, immediately raised the stone, and found that it weighed about 56 lib. These statements have been authenticated by the signatures of the people who made them.

On the 17th March 1798 a bo

dy, burning very brightly, passed over the vicinity of Ville-Franche, on the Soane, accompanied with a hissing noise, and leaving a luminous track behind it. It exploded with great noise, about twelve hundred feet from the ground;. and one of the shivers, still luminous, being observed to fall in a neighbouring vineyard, was traced. At that spot, a stone above a foot in diameter was found to have penetrated about twenty inches into the soil. It was sent to M. Sage, of the National Institute, accompanied by a narrative of the foregoing circumstances, under the hand of an intelligent eye-witness.

While these observations in Europe were daily confirming the original but long exploded idea of the vulgar, that many of the luminous meteors observed in our horizon are masses of ignited matter, an account of a phenomenon, precisely of the same description, was received from the East Indies, vouched by authority peculiarly well adapted to secure general respect. Mr. Williams, a member of the Royal Society of London, residing in Bengal, having heard of an explosion, accompanied by

a descent of stones, in the province of Bahar, made all possible inquiries into the circumstances of the phenomenon, among the Europeans who happened to be on the spot. He learnt, that on the 19th December 1798, at 8 o'clock P. M. a luminous meteor, like a large, ball of fire, was seen at Benares, and in different parts of the country; that it was attended with a rumbling, loud noise; and that, about the same time, the inhabitants of Krakhut, fourteen miles from Benares, saw the light, heard a loud thunder-clap, and, immediately after, heard the noise of heavy bodies falling in their neighbourhood. Next morning, the fields were found to have been turned up in different spots, which was easily perceived, as the crop was not more than two or three inches above the ground; and stones of different sizes, but apparently of the same substances, were picked out of the moist soil, generally from a depth of six inches. As the occurrence took place in the night, and after the people had retired to rest, no one observed the meteor explode, or the stones fall; but the watchman of an English gentleman, who lived near Krak hut, brought him one next morning, which he said had fallen through the top of his hut, and buried itself in the earthen floor.

Several of the foregoing narratives mention the material circumstanee, of damage done to interposed objects by the stones, sup posed to have fallen on the earth. In one instance still more distinct traces were left of their progress through the air. During the explosion of a meteor, on the 20th August 1789, near Bourdeaux, a stone, about fifteen inches diameter, broke through the roof of a cottage, and killed a herdsman and

some cattle. Part of the stone is now in the museum of Mr. Greville, and the rest in that of Bourdeaux. It is singular that this fact is not mentioned by M. Izarn,* nor by Vauquelin, although he examined a specimen evidently taken from the same stone, and received a procès-verbal of the manner in which it fell. We take the account from Mr. Greville's paper, (Phil. Trans. 1803. part I.); and he appears to have received it from M. St. Amand, Professor of Natural History at the Central School of Agen.

It is quite impossible, we apprehend, to deny very great weight to all these testimonies; some of them given by intelligent eyewitnesses; others by people of less information, indeed, but preposses sed with no theory; all concurring in their descriptions; and examined by various persons of acuteness and respectability, immediately after the phenomena had been exhibited. Without offering any farther remarks, then, upon this mass of external evidence, we shall only remind our readers of the main points which it seems satisfactorily to substantiate. proves, that, in various parts of the world, luminous meteors have been seen moving through the air, in a direction more or less oblique, accompanied by a noise, generally like the bissing of large shot, followed by explosion, and the fall of hard, stony, or semi-metallick masses, in a heated state. hissing sound, so universally mentioned; the fact of stones being found, unlike all those in the neighbourhood, at the spots towards

It

The

* Des Pierres tombées du Ciel, ou Lithologie Atmospherique, &c. &c. Par Joseph Izarn, Professeur de Physique, &c. Paris, De la Lain, fils. An. XI. (1803.) pp. 427, 8vo.

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