Natural History. 185 



stating that the noise appeared directly over their heads. One 

 gentleman, being about twenty-five miles from the place where 

 the stone fell, says that it caused his whole plantation to shake, 

 which many supposed to be the effect of an earthquake. I cannot 

 learn that any fire-ball or any light was seen in the heavens. 

 All are confident that there was but one report, and no peculiar 

 smell in the air was noticed. 



Captain Harrison, whose account is added to this, and on whose 

 grounds the stone fell, states, from his own observation, that the 

 time was between twelve and one o'clock, that the explosion was 

 sharper than a cannon ; that then a buzzing noise was heard over 

 head, first like that of a bee, but increasing till like a spinning 

 wheel, or a chimney on fire, and that then something was heard to 

 fall, the time from the explosion to the fall being perhaps fifteen 

 seconds. After a while the stone was found about twenty-two or 

 twenty-four inches beneath the surface ; it had a strong sul- 

 phureous smell, and there were black streaks in the clay, which 

 appeared marked by its descent ; the mud was thrown in different 

 directions from thirteen to sixteen steps. The stone, when 

 washed, weighed lGlbs. It fell within 250 yards of Captain Har- 

 rison's house, and within a hundred yards of the habitation of the 

 negroes. This account was given from memory on the 28th of the 

 following April. — Silliman's Journal, ix. 351. 



5. Composition of Aerolites. — M. G. Rose, of Berlin, has suc- 

 ceeded in separating crystals of pyroxene from a large specimen of 

 the aerolite of Juvenas, and has measured the angles with the re- 

 flective goniometer : one of the crystals is of the octoedral variety, 

 represented in the 109th figure of Haiiy's mineralogy. The same 

 rocky tissue contains microscopic hemitrope crystals, which ap- 

 pear to be felspar, with a base of soda, i. e., albite. 



M. Rose has also examined, at the request of M. Humboldt, the 

 aerolite of Pallas, and the trachytes collected on Chimborazo, and 

 the other volcanoes of the Andes : he has found that the olivine 

 of the mass of Pallas is perfectly crystallized, and that the trachytes 

 of the Andes are, in part, mixtures of pyroxene and albite like the 

 aerolite of Juvenas. Perhaps the same is the case with those of 

 Jonzac and Stannern, of which, as yet, the masses have not been 

 studied mineralogically by trituration, the microscope, and the 

 reflective goniometer. — Ann. de Chimie, xxix. 109. 



6. Flexible Marble of Berkshire Country, U.S. — Dr. Dewey states 

 that this marble, which has been known for some years, and until 

 lately was found chiefly in West Stockbridge and Lanesborough, 

 is now obtained at New Ashford, from an extensively wrought 

 quarry. He had three fine specimens of it in slabs from five to 

 six feet in length, and seven inches in width. Its flexibility and 



