>\QO ON STONY AND METALLINE SUBSTANCES. 



fize was that of a large houfe, 70 feet long ; and its elevation 

 above the furface of the eaith, about 200 yards. The light 

 produced effecls little ftiort of fun-beams; and a confiderable 

 degree of heat was felt by thofe who faw it, but no electric 

 fenfation. Immediately after it difappeared in the north-weft, 

 a violent ru filing noife was heard, as if the phenomenon were 

 bearing down the foreft before it ; and, in a few feconds after, 

 there was a tremendous crafh, caufing a very fenfible earth- 

 quake. Search being afterwards made in the place where the 

 burning body fell, every vegetable was found burnt, or greatly 

 fcorched, and a confiderable portion of the furface of the earth 

 broken up. We have to lament, that the authors of this ac- 

 count did not fearch deeper than the furface of the ground. 

 Such an immenfe body, though moving in a horizontal direc- 

 tion, could not but be buried to a confiderable depth. Should 

 it have been more than the femblance of a body of a peculiar 

 nature, the lapfe of ages may perhaps effect what has now 

 been neglected; and its magnitude and folitary fituation be- 

 come the aitonifhment of future philofophers. 

 Concerning the This leads me to fpeak of the folitary mafs of what has been 

 immenfe mafs of ca |i ec j lia ti v e iron, which was difcovered in South America, 

 S. America. and has been defcribed by Don Rubin de Celis. Its weight 

 was about 15 tons. The fame author mentions another infu- 

 lated mafs of the fame nature. The whole account is exceed- 

 ingly interefting ; but, being already publifbed in the Philo- 

 fophical Tranfa&ions for the year 1788, it needs not be here 

 repeated. 



Mr. Prouft has fhewn the mafs particularly defcribed, not to 

 be wholly iron, but a mixture of nickel and iron. The Trus- 

 tees of the Britifh Mufeum, who are in pofleffion of fome frag- 

 ments of this mafs, fent to the Royal Society by Don Rubin 

 de Celis, have done me the honour to permit me to examine 

 them ; and I have great fatisfa6lion in agreeing with achemift 

 fojuftly celebrated as Mr. Prouft. 

 and that de- The connection which naturally exifts between one mafs of 



fcribedby Pallas, na t; ve iron and another, immediately turns our attention to the 



and Confidered . . _., i c 'h i'l n n j ,i • 



by the Tartars native iron in Siberia, delcribed by railas; and this, we are 

 as fallen from told, the Tartars confidered as a facred relic, which had 

 dropped from heaven. The nickel found in the one mafs, 

 and the traditional hiftory of the other, not to compare the 

 globular bodies of the ftone from Benares with the globular 



concavities. 



keaven. 



