THE YORKSHIRE METEORITE. 



Mr. G. B. SOWERBY begs to state that, being commissioned by those 

 blanches of his late Father's Family, whose property the famous Yorkshire 

 Meteorite at present is; he has adopted a plan which was proposed two years 

 ago, and a short address which was drawn up at that time by a Gentleman 

 connected with the British Museum. 



December 13M. 1835. 



Whether we consider Meteorites as foreign to the confines of our atmos- 

 phere, as ejections or fragments of Planets moving within the compass of the 

 solar system, or as the chemical products of electrical phaenomena, — certain it 

 is, that even the most satisfactory solution of the Problem respecting their origin 

 would neither weaken the general interest which must ever be excited by each 

 successive appearance of these mysterious visitants to our Planet, nor create 

 indifference toward such of an older date, as are distinguished by any 

 peculiarity in their nature, or by any remarkable historical circumstance 

 connected with them. In the latter class is most indisputably to be placed the 

 far-famed subject of this short address which fell from the atmosphere in the 

 Parish of Thwing, East Riding, Yorkshire, this Day Forty Years ago, during 

 which period, it has maintained its superiority in size not only over those few 

 which descended in Great Britain, but also over those of the Continent, 

 (as far as we know of their) existence with the sole exception of that of Ensisheim, 

 still preserved in the Capital of the Territory in which it descended in 1492. 

 But setting aside the bulk of the Yorkshire Stone, the circumstance alone of 

 its being intimately connected with a new era in the history of the extra- 

 ordinary Atmospheric Phenonnenon in question, will ever make it rank as one of 

 the most valuable specimens of Natural History preserved in England. In it 

 we possess the principal one of the Three Stones, the chemical analysis of 

 which, converted into certainty an opinion which was till then (and by the 

 more sceptical even after that period,) discarded as a superstition unworthy 

 of the advanced state of Natural Science at the end of the Eighteenth Century, 

 Upwards of Thirty -eight Years ago, its exhibition in London furnished to 

 many learned men of the day, a theme for censure on the blind credulity of 

 the Public, till Sir Joseph Banks's keenly discriminating eye discovered an 

 agreement in external characters between it and tvvo othei Stones transmitted 

 to him about the same time, the one from Sienna, the other from Benares, in 

 the East Indies, and to both of which, report has ascribed a similar origin 

 with that under consideration. Having obtained a small fragment from the 

 latter, a portion of each of the specimens (subsequently deposited in the 

 British Museum,) was submitted to chemical analysis by Mr. Howard, 

 whose excellent paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1802, secured to 

 the Yorkshire Meteorite the eminent rank it has ever since occupied in the 

 record of facts relating to this interesting subject of research. 



The Yorkshire Meteorite is well known to have become the property, 

 and to be still in the possession of, the family of the late Mr. Sowkrby, who 

 now intend to part with it. Proposals for purchasing it by Subscription, with 

 a view to its being placed in the British Museum are accordingly submitted 

 to the Public at the suggestion of several Members of Scientific Societies, 

 who are of opinion that its interest as a most remarkable object of the Natural 

 History of Great Britain will secure a sufficient number of Subscribers to 

 obviate the possibility of its being eventually lost to this Country through 

 offers which may be made by Continental Museums. 



As soon as £300. shall be subscribed, the Meteorite will be delivered to 

 the Trustees of the British Museum, together with a List of the Subscribers, 

 which will then be printed, and each Subscriber will be furnished with a 

 copy. The Subscription Book is open at Mr. SuWERBV's, 50, Great Russell 

 Street, Bloomsbury. 



