FALLEN ON THE EARTH. £Q 



a meteor muft neccffarily accompany them *. Yet the ftonfr 

 from Sienna fell amidft what was imagined lightning, but what 

 might in reality have been a meteor. Stones were alfo found 

 after the meteor feen in Gafcony, in July, 1790. And Mr. 

 Falconet, in the memoir I have already quoted, relates, that 

 the ftone whicb was adored as the mother of the gods, was a 

 Bcetilia ; and that it fell at the feet of the poet Pindar, enve- 

 loped in a ball of fire. He alfo obferves, that all the Bcetilia 

 had the fame origin. 



I ought not perhaps to fupprefs, that in endeavouring to Ek&ricity ren- 



form an artificial black coating on the interior furface of one f ers . thcfe fton ea 



° luminous aud 



of the ftones from Benares, by fending over it the electrical black. 



charge of about 37 fquare feet of glafs, it was obferved to 



become luminous, in the dark, for nearly a quarter of an hour; 



and that the tract of the eleftrical fluid was rendered black. 



I by no means with to lay any ftrefs upon this circumftance ; 



for I am well aware, that many fubftances become luminous 



by electricity. 



But, mould it ever be difcovered that fallen ftones are ac- 

 tually the bodies of meteors, it would not appear fo proble- 

 matical, that fuch maffes as thefe ftones are fometimes repre- 

 fented, do not penetrate further into the earth : for meteors 

 move more in a horizontal than iu a perpendicular direction ; 

 and we are as abfolutely unacquainted with the force which 

 impels the meteor, as with the origin of the fallen ftone. 



Before I clofe this fubject, I may be particularly expected Meteor which 



to notice the meteor which, a few months ago, traverfed the lateIy cr ° I l ed Jf hc 



° county of Suf- 



county of Suffolk. It was faid, that part of it fell near Saint folk. 



Edmundlbury, and even that it fet fire to a cottage in that 



vicinity. It appeared, from inquiries made on the fpot, that 



fomething, feemingly from the meteor, was, with a degree 



ofreafon, believed to have fallen in the adjacent meadows ; 



but the time of the combuftion of the houfe did not correfpond 



with the moment of the meteor's tranfition. 



A phenomenon much more worthy of attention, has fmce 



been defcribed in the Philofophical Magazine. On the night Prodigious me- 



ofthe 5th of April, 1800, a body wholly luminous, was feen, tcor in America< 



in America, to move with prodigious velocity. Its apparent 



* In the account of the ftone which fell in Portugal, no mention, 

 is made, either of a meteor or lightning. 



H 2 fize 



