Klrkwood.] 0J± [March 16, 



Monllily Weather Review for December, 1876, says: "No reliable ac- 

 counts speak of any noise heard during the visibility of the meteor, but in 

 from two to five minutes after its passage a shock resem1)ling thunder was 

 heard, which in the majority of cases was descril)ed as tremendous, 

 shaking tlie ground and the houses, and was especially alarming to those 

 w:ho, on account of the prevailing cloudiness, were unable to see the 

 preceding meteor. The uniform character of the sound heard at all 

 the stations shows that it was not due to any violent e.\i)losion (properlj' 

 so-called), but was a peculiar acoustic phenomenon, depending on the fact 

 that that portion of the line described by the meteor when nearest to any 

 observer, became, as it were instantaneously along a length of several 

 miles, the origin of a series of simultaneous sounds which, although in 

 themselves comparatively' feeble, Avere concentrated into a violent sound 

 when they reached the observer's ear." The view here expressed is not 

 sustained bj- the observations in Monroe and the adjacent counties, as a 

 sound from the nearest point of the meteor's track would have reached 

 Blooniington, if at all, in 10 or 11 minutes. 



When crossing Indiana the principal fireball was followed by a train or 

 group of smaller meteors, many of which were superior in ajiparent 

 magnitude to Venus or Jupiter. The breadth or apparent diameter of this 

 cluster, as seen from Blooniington, was three degrees, and its length at 

 least twenty degrees. Its true diameter was therefore five miles, and its 

 length about fortj'^ miles. These smaller meteors were chiefly the results 

 of the explosions over Central Illinois A final disruption occurred oyer 

 Erie county, Pennsylvania ; several minor explosions having taken place 

 during the passage over Indiana and Oliio. 



The Fulton County Fragment. 



A fragment of the meteorite fell on the farm of Mr. Andrew J. Morris, 

 three miles North- west of Rochester, Fulton countj', Indiana. Mr. M., 

 on hearing the meteoric explosion, had left his house, when he noticed a 

 heavy body strike the earth at no great distance. Designating the spot as 

 nearly as he could by a mark in the snow (which was six inches deep), he 

 returned in the morning, and soon found where the meteorite had struck 

 in the snow, rebounded and again fallen close b)\ The whole fragment 

 weighed about 12 ounces. A part of it was secured by the writer and 

 forwarded to Prof. Chas. Upham Shepard, of Amherst College, Mass. 

 A fragment was also obtained by Mr. W. A. Roebling, of New York, and 

 a third was sent by Prof. E. T. Cox to Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, of Louis- 

 ville. No analysis, however, has yet been published. The body is 

 peculiar in its structure ; l)eing i)is()litio and remarkably friable. The fact 

 that other portions of tlie mass have not been discovered may perhaps be 

 owing to its complete disintegration. 



Did the Meteok Pass Out of the ATMOsrHEUE? 



The observations at Blooniington, Indiana, and Wooster, Ohio, indicate 

 that in a flight of 200 miles eastward from Rochester the altitude dimin- 



