1887.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 599 



quite cloudy all day, but uoraiu fell until night. These I'aets are from 

 the affidavits of Mr. and Mrs. Shaudy and John li. "Xorton. Mr. Shandy 

 at first supposed that their find was platinum, then silver; he finally 

 learned what it really was and sold it. Mrs. India Ford, ])r. W. J. 

 Bleck, Mr. S. A. Wright, constable, and Mr. L. Wright, chief of police, 

 also heard the report caused by thefall. 



The noise was heard 75 miles away, and was likened to a loud report 

 followed by a hissing sound as if hot metal had come in contact with 

 water. It caused a general alarm among the people, and teams of 

 horses 25 miles distant, becoming frightened, broke loose and ran away. 

 In Webb City, Franklin (Jounty, on the south side of the Arkansas 

 lliver, a number of bells kept on sale in a store are said to have been 

 caused to tinkle. 



Mr. B. Caraway states that he heard two loud reports at Alma, Craw- 

 ford County, at -'> o'clock on March 27, 1880. The report was also lu^ird 

 at Itussellville and in the adjoining county of Poi)e. The Democrat, of 

 that place, April 29, 18S0, says : 



TIio wonderful meteoric stone, as it is called, but crroueouslj% for nothing i.s further 

 from stone than it is, is now on exhibition here. We looked on.the strange thing, and 

 wondered what it was and where it came from. The noise it made Avhen it struck the 

 earth's atmosphere on tiie 27th of March and eamo whizzing to earth near Knoxvillo 

 will never bo forgotten, neither will any one who looked at it ever forget it. 



A description of the mass then follows. 



Tho Dardanelle Tost of April 1 contains several articles and commu- 

 nications in reference to the explosion. The story of the local reporter 

 reads as follows : 



On last Saturday, the 27th instant, the people of this town were startled by an un- 

 usually loud report in the heavens, accompanied by a well marked and Tieculiar whirr- 

 ing or whizzing sound. Attention was first attracted to the northwest by the rei)ort, 

 after which there seemed tobo an immense and irregular body v/hiz toward the zenith 

 and somewhat north of it, and there seemed to stoii and whiz like ten thousand scald- 

 ing hogs, and then, after another terrific rejjort, to die away in the southwest. 



Mr. R. E. Cole, whose experience is corroborated by a hundred others of this sec- 

 tion, was in his garden at the time of tlic report. He immediately looked at his watch 

 and noted the time, 3.17 p. m. He followed the sound, the direction of it, with his 

 eyes, and had no difficulty in exactly locating the point where the body appeared to 

 stop, and as the last report died away he noted again the time and found the lapse 

 to have been three minutes. Nothing could be seen, owing to the clouds. 



Our correspondents speak of it elsewhere, and Mr. Woolbrighfc, of Gravelly Hill, 

 who was in this week, said that the people of his neighborhood felt sure that it had 

 fallen out in the mountains just north of them and were going to hunt it up. 



D. W. McGuire, of Logan, about township 8, range 24 or 25 west, sent in to inquire 

 after it, saying that it was north of him. Mr. Charley Littleton, u^) tlie Fort SmithRail- 

 road, reported same as the others, but all agree that where the object seemed to stoi> 

 and whiz was north of them. At last, yesterday, Mr. John Burkhead, who lives near 

 Delaware, Logan County, came in to tell us that the meteor had fallen in Johnson 

 County, 4 miles north of the month of Piney and on the east side of the creek in the 

 Uncle Billy Norton settlement ; that a man and his wife were standing in their yard and 

 hearing the report turned their eyes in the direction and saw an object falling directly 

 to the ground. They noted the direction by meaus of some trees and went in search 



