FALLEN ON THE EA-RTtf. 255 



move the objections made to the fall of the ftones prefented to 

 the Royal French Academy. But the Right Hon. prefident of 

 the Royal Society, ever alive to the intereft and promotion of 

 fcience, obferving the ftone fo exhibited to refemble a ftone 

 fent to him as one of thofe fallen at Sienna, could not be miflecl 

 by prejudice; he obtained a piece of this extraordinary mafs, 

 and collected many references to defcriptions of fimilar phe- 

 nomena. At length, in 1799, an account of ftones fallen in 

 the Eaft Indies was fent to the prefident, by John Lloyd Wil- 

 liams, Efq. which, by its unqueftionable authenticity, and by 

 the finking refemblance it bears to other accounts of fallen 

 ftones, muft remove all prejudice, Mr. Williams has fince 

 drawn up the following more detailed narrative of facts. 



Account of the Explofion of a Meteor, near Benares, in the Eaft Explofion of a 

 ladies; and of the falling of fome Stones at the fame Tinte,™^'™™^ 

 about 14 Miles from that City. By John Lloyd Williams, falling of fome 

 Efq. F. R. S. ftones at the 



fame time. 

 A circumftance of fo extraordinary a nature as the fall of 

 nones from the heavens, could not fail to excite the wonder, 

 and attract the attention of every inquifitive mind. 



Among a fuperftitious people, any preternatural appearance 

 is viewed with filent awe and reverence ; attributing the caufes 

 to the will of the Supreme Being, they do not prefume to judge 

 the means by which they were produced, nor the purpofes for 

 which they were ordered ; and we are naturally led to fufpect 

 the influence of prejudice and fuperftition, in their defcriptions 

 of fuch phenomena ; my inquiries were therefore chiefly di- 

 rected to the Europeans, who were but thinly difperfed about 

 that part of the country. 



The information I obtained was, that on the 19th of De- Narrative, 

 cember, 1798, about eight o'clock in the evening, a very lu- 

 minous meteor was obferved in the heavens, by the inhabitants 

 of Benares and the parts adjacent, in the form of a large ball Lar S e . bal1 °f 

 of fire; that it was accompanied by a loud noife, refembling ^g t h un der. 

 thunder ; and that a number of ftones were faid to have fallen 

 from it, near Krakhul, a village on the north fide of the river 

 Goomty, about 14 miles from the city of Benares. 



The meteor appeared in the weftern part of thehemifphere, 

 and was but a fhort time vifible ; it was obferved by feveral 

 Europeans, as well as natives, in different parts of the country. 



In 



