oneeftain Stony and$feUiHine Subjlances. 2 9 



taufes to the will of the Supreme Being, they do not pre- 

 iume to judge the means by which they were produced, nor 

 the purpoles for which they were ordered ; and we are natu- 

 rally led to fufpect the influence of prejudice and fuperftition 

 in their descriptions offuch phenomena: my inquiries were 

 therefore chiefly directed to the Europeans, who Were hut 

 thinly difperfed about that part of the country. 



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

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

 luminous meteor was obferved in the heavens, by the inha- 

 bitants of Benares and the parts adjacent, in the form of a 

 large ball of fire.; that it was accompanied by a loud noife 

 refemb'ing thunder; and that a number of ftones were faid 

 to have fallen from it near Krakhut, 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 the hemi- 

 fphere, and was but a fhort time viiible: it was obferved by 

 ieveral Europeans, as well as natives, in different parts of the 

 country. 



In. the neighbourhood of Juanpoor, about twelve miles 

 from the fpot where the fiones are faid to have fallen, it was 

 very diftinclly obferved by feveral European gentlemen and 

 ladies; who defcribed it as a jarge ball of fire, accompanied 

 with a loud rumbling noife, not unlike an ill-difcharged pla- 

 toon of mufketry. it was alfo feen, and the noife heard, by 

 various perfons at Benares. Mr. Davis obferved the light 

 come into the room where he was, through a glafs window, 

 fo ftrongly as to project fhadows from the bars between the 

 panes, on a dark coloured carpet, very diftinctly; and it ap- 

 peared to him as luminous as the brighteft moonlight. 



When an account of the fall of the tlones reached Benares, 

 Mr. Davis, the judge and magistrate of the diftrict, fent an 

 intelligent perfon to make inquiry on. the fpot. When the 

 perfon arrived at the village near which the ftones were faid 

 to have fallen, the natives, in annver to his inquiries, told 

 him, that they had either broken to pieces, or given away to 

 the tejjlidar (native collector) and others, all that they had 

 picked up ;. but that he might eafily find fome in the adjacent ' 

 fields, where they would be readily discovered (the .crops 

 being then not above two or three inches above the ground) 

 by obierving where the earth appeared recently turned up. 

 Following thefe directions, he found four, which he brought 

 to Mr. Davis : mod of thefe the force of the fall had buried, 

 according to a meafure he produced, about fix inches deep, 

 in fields which feeme/j to have been recently watered / and 



it 



