238 An Account of a Shower of Meteoric Stones, 



their thunderbolts to the best market they could. This was^ 

 it must be confessed, a wiser mode of managing the business 

 than that which had been adopted by some others at an 

 earlier period of these discoveries. Strongly inipressed with 

 the idea that these stones contained gold and silver, they 

 subjected them to all the tortures of ancient alchemy, and 

 the goldsmith's crucible, the forge, and the blacksmith's 

 anvil, were employed in vain to elicit riches which existed 

 only in the imagination. 



Two miles south-east from Mr. Prince's, at the foot of 

 Tashowa hill, a fifth mass fell. Its fall was distinctly heard 

 by Mr. Ephraim Porter and his family, who live within 40 

 rods of the place, and in full view. They saw a smoke rise 

 from ihc spot, as they did also from the hill, where they 

 are positive that another stone struck, as they heard it di- 

 stinctly. At the time of the fall, having never heard of any 

 such thing, they supposed that lightning had struck the 

 ground ; but after three or four days, hearing of the stones 

 which had been found in their vicinity, they were induced 

 to search, and the result was the discovery of a mass of 

 stone in the road, at the place where they supposed the 

 lightning had struck. It penetrated the ground to the depth 

 ot'two feet in the deepest place ; the hole was about twenty 

 inches in diameter, and its margin was coloured blue from 

 the powder of the stone struck off in its fall. 



It was broken into fragments of moderate size, and from 

 the best calculations might have weighed 20 or 25 pounds. 



The hole exhibited niarks of much violence, the turf 

 being very much torn, and thrown about to some distance. 



It is probable that the four stones last described were all 

 projected at the second explosion, and should one be dis- 

 cpvered on the neighbouring hill*, we must without doubt 

 rttfer it to the sam€ avulsion, 



3. Last of all, we hasten to what appears to havebcea 

 ihe catastrophe of this wonderful phaenomenon. 



A mass of stone far exceeding the united weight of all 



♦ Which has since been found, weighing- thirty-six poupds apd a quarter. 

 1 have seen and wcighe<^ it myself. G. Burr. 



which 



