on certain Stony and. Metalline Buhjlances. £33 



lubftances which produce or convey the light of a meteor, or 

 that a meteor muft neceffarily accompany them *. Yet the 

 ftones 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 which was adored as the mother of 

 the gods, was a bcetll'mi and that it fell at the feet of the 

 poet Pindar, enveloped in a ball of fire. He alfo obferves, 

 that all the hbetitid had the fame origin. 



I ought not, perhaps, to fupprefs, that in endeavouring to 

 form an artificial black coating on the interior furface of one 

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

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

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

 hour; and that the track of the electrical fluid was rendered 

 black. I by no means with to lay any flrefs upon this cir- 

 cumftance ; for I am well aware that many fubftances be- 

 come/ luminous by electricity. 



But, mould it ever be difcovereel trial falfen ftones are ac- 

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

 tical, 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 in a perpendicular direction ; 

 and we are as abfolntely 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 

 to notice the meteor which, a few months ago, traverfed the 

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

 Edmundfbury, 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 

 of reafon, believed to have fallen in the adjacent mea- 

 dows ; but the time of the combuftion of the houfe did not 

 correspond with the moment of the meteor's tranfition. A 

 phenomenon much more worthy of attention has fmce been 

 defcribed' in the Philosophical Magazine. On the night of 

 the 5th of April 1800, a body wholly luminous was feen, 

 in America, to move with prodigious velocity. Its apparent 

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

 above the furface of the eartli about 200 yards. The light 

 produced effects little fhort of fun-beams ; and a conuderable 

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

 fenfation. Immediately after it diiappearcd in the north- 



• In the account of the ftone which fell La Portugal, no mention is 

 made either of a meteor or lightning. 



tvef, 



