Dum loquitur totum jam sol emoverat orbem, Decidid, a populo clamor ad antra venit. Idque ancile vocat, quod ab omni parte recisum est. It is very possible that the Palladium of Troy, and the Image of the Ephesian Diana, were stones which really fell from the atmosphere; bearing some rude resemblance to the .human form.-See the IMPERIAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, article Erolith. I believe it is generally agreed among philosophers. 1. That all the ærial stones, chemically analysed, shew the same properties 2. That no stone found on our earth, possesses exactly the same properties, nor in the same proportions. This is an extraordinary circumstance, and deserves particular notice. Narrative of the descent from the regions above of some of thos air stones spoken of in Mr. Clarke's table of such occurrences: by Mr. Haward, F. R. S. which was read before the Royal Society, Feb. 25, 1802. This gentleman does not incline to give his opinion of their origin so freely as the subject seems to warrant, But that great philosopher and christian, Adam Clarke, does not hesitate to say that their most probable origin is in the volcanos of the moon. How can their origin be rea sonably located to any other place? To the eye of reason it does not appear that such heavy bodies can be formed in the regions of the air (as some have suggested) for the known laws of gravitation oppose to this hypothesis a barrier which cannot be removed. MR. HAWARD observes, that-" The concordance of a variety of facts seems to render it most indisputable, that certain stony and metalline substances have. at different periods, fallen on the earth. The accounts of these peculiar substances, in the early annals, even of the Royal Society, have unfortunately been blended with relations which we now consider as fabulous. In very early ages, it was believed that stones did in reality fall from heaven, or from the gods. In modern days, because ex-plosion and report have generally accompanied the descent of such substances, the name of thunderbolt, or thunderstone, has attached itself to them: and, because a variety of substances accidentally present, near buildings and trees struck with lightning, have been collected as thunderbolts, the thunderbolt and the fallen metalline substance have been ranked in the same class. But the existence of peculiar substances fallen on the earth, I cannot hesitate to assert; and, on the concordance of remote and authenticated facts, I shall rest the assertion." The author then, having noticed the various accounts which have been given, in ancient and modern times, of stones that have fallen from the sky, produces the following letter from the Earl of Bristol, to sir Wm. Hamilton, dated from Sienna (a city in Tuscany,) July 12, 1794; acquainting him that, "In the midst of a most violent thunder-storm, about a dozen stones of various weights and dimensions, fell at the feet of different persons, men, women, and children. The stones are of a quality not found in any part of the Siennese territory; they fell about eighteen hours after the enormous eruption of Mount Vesuvius; which circumstance leaves a choice of difficulties in the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon. Either these stones have been generated in this igneous mass of clouds, which produced such unusual thunder; cr, which is equally incredible, they were thrown from Vesuvius, at a distance of at least 250 miles; judge then of its parabola. The philosophers here incline to the first solution. I wish much, Sir, to know your sentiments. My first objection was to the fact itself; but of this there are so many eye-witnesses, it seems impossible to withstand their evidence." "Sir William Hamilton, it seems, also received a piece of one of the largest stones, which weighed upwards of five pounds; and had seen another, which weighed about one. He likewiseobserved, that the out side of every stone which had been found, and had been ascertained to have fallen from the clouds near Sienna, was evidently freshly vitrified, and was black, having every sign of having passed through an extreme heat; the inside was of a light gray colour, mixed with black spots, and some shining particles, which the learned there had decided to be pyrites. "In 1796, a stone weighing 56lbs. was exhibited in London, with several attestations of persons who, on the 13th of December, 1795, saw it fall, near Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire, at about three o'clock in the afternoon. It had penetrated through 12 inches of soil, and 6 inches of solid chalk rock; and in burying itself, had thrown up an immense quantity of earth, to a great distance: As it fell, a number of explosions were heard, about as loud as pistols. In the adjacent villages, the sounds heard were taken for guns at sea; but, at two adjoining villages, were so distinct of something singular passing through the air, towards the habitation of Mr. Topham, that five or six people came up, to see if any thing extraordinary had happened to his house or grounds. When the stone was extracted, it was warm, smoked, and smelt very strongly of sulphur. Its course, as far as could be collected from different accounts, was from the south west. The day was mild and hazy, a sort of weather very frequent in the Wold Hills, when there are no winds or storms; but there was not any thunder or lightning the whole day. No such stone is known in the country. There was no eruption in the earth; and, from its form, it could not come from any building: and, as the day was not tempestuous, it did not seem probable that it could have been forced from any rocks, the nearest of which are those of Hamborough Head, at a distance of twelve miles.* The nearest volcano, I believe to be Hecla, in Iceland." In 1799, an account of Stones fallen in the East-Indies, was sent to the President of the Royal Society, by John Lloyd Williams, Esq. which, by its unquestionable authenticity, and by the striking resemblance it bears to other accounts of fallen stones, must remove all prejudice. Mr. Williams has since drawn up the following more detailed narrative of facts. Account of the explosion of a meteor, near Benares, in the EastIndies And of the falling of some stones at the same time, about fourteen miles from the city. By John Lloyd Williams, Esq. F. R. S. "A circumstance of so extraordinary a nature as the fall of stones from the heavens, could not fail to excite the wonder, and attract the attention of every inquisitive mind. "Among a superstitious people, any preternatural appearance is viewed with silent awe and reverence; attributing the causes to the will of the Supreme Being, they do not presume to judge of the means by which they were produced, nor the purposes for which they were ordered; and we are naturally led to suspect the influence of prejudice and superstition, in their descriptions of such phenomena; my inquiries were therefore chiefly directed to the Europeans, who were but thinly dispersed about that part of the country. "The information I obtained was, that on the 19th of De * Extracted from the printed paper delivered at the place of exhibition. cember, 1798, about eight o'clock in the evening a very luminous meteor was observed in the heavens, by the inhabitants of Benares, and the parts adjacent, in the form of a large ball of fire; that it was accompanied by a loud noise, resembling thunder; and that a number of stones were said to have fallen from it, near Krakhut, a village on the north side of the river Goomty, about 14 miles from the city of Benares. "The meteor appeared in the western part of the hemisphere, and was but a short time visible: It was observed by several Europeans, as well as natives, in different parts of the country. "In the neighbourhood of Junapoor, about 12 miles from the spot where the stones are said to have fallen, it was very distinctly observed by several European gentlemen and ladies; who described it as a ball of fire accompanied with a loud rumbling noise, not unlike an ill-discharged platoon of musketry. It was also seen, and the noise heard, by various persons at Benares. Mr. Davis observed the light come into the room where he was, through a glass window, so strongly as to project shadows from the bars between the panes, on a dark coloured carpet, very distinctly; and it appeared to him as luminous as the brightest moonlight. "When an account of the fall of the stones reached Benares, Mr. Davis, the judge and magistrate of the district, sent an intelligent person to make enquiry on the spot. When the person arrived at the village near which the stones were said to have fallen, the natives, in answer to his enquiries, told him, that they had either broken to pieces, or given away to the Tesseldar, (native collector) and others, all that they had picked up; but that he might easily find some in the adjacent fields, where they would be readily discovered, (the crops being then not above two or three inches above the ground,) by observing where the earth appeared recently turned up. Following these directions, he found four, which he brought to Mr. Davis; most of these, the force of the fall had buried, according to a measure he produced, about six inches deep, in fields which seemed to have been recently watered; and it appeared, from the man's description, that they must have lain at the distance of about a hundred yards from each other. "What he further learnt from the inhabitants of the village, concerning the phenomenon, was that about eight o'clock in the evening, when retired to their habitations, they observed a very bright light proceeding as from the sky, accompanied with a loud clap of thunder, which was immediately followed by the noise of heavy bodies falling in the vicinity. Uncertain whether some of their deities might not have been concerned in this occurrence, they did not venture out to enquire into it until the next morning; when the first circumstance which attracted their attention, was, the appearance of the earth being turned up in different parts of their fields, as before mentioned, where, on examining, they found the stones. "The assistant to the collector of the district, Mr. Erskine, a very intelligent young gentleman, on seeing one of the stones, brought to him by the native superintendant of the collections, was also induced to send a person to that part of the country, to make enquiry; who returned with several of the stones, and brought an account similar to that given by the person sent by Mr. Davis, together with a confirmation of it from the Cauzy, (who had been directed to make the enquiry,) under his hand and seal. "Mr. Maclane, a gentleman who resided very near the village of Krakhut, gave me part of a stone that had been brought to him, the morning after the appearance of the phenomenon, by the watchman who was on duty at his house; this, he said, had fallen through the top of his hut, which was close by, and buried itself several inches in the floor, which was of consolidated earth. The stone must, by his account, previous to its having been broken, have weighed upwards of two pounds. "At the time the meteor appeared. the sky was perfectly serene; not the smallest vestige of a cloud had been seen since the 11th of the month, nor were any observed for many days after. In "Of these stones, I have seen eight, nearly perfect besides parts of several others, which had been broken by the possessors, to distribute among their friends. The form of the more perfect ones, appeared to be that of an irregular cube, rounded off at the edges: but the angles were to be observed on most of them. They were of various sizes, from about three to upwards of four inches in their largest diameter; one of them, measuring four inches and a quarter, weighed two pounds twelve ounces. appearance, they were exactly similar: Externally, they were covered with a hard black coat or incrustation, which, in some parts had the appearance of varnish, or bitumen; and, on most of them were fractures, which, from their being covered with a matter similar to that of the coat, seemed to have been made in the fall, by the stones striking against each other, and to have passed through some medium, probably an intense heat, previous to their reaching the earth. Internally, they consisted of a number of small spherical bodies, of a slate colour, embedded in a whitish gritty substance, interspersed with bright shining spiculæ, of a metallic or pyritical nature. The spherical bodies were much harder than the rest of the stone: The white gritty part readily crumbled, on being rubbed with a hard body; and, on being broken, a quantity of it attached itself to the magnet, |