312. 
from them by attrition, and abrasion, 
for which it would puzzle the philoso-. 
phy of your correspondent to find a 
more appropriate term than that of 
clayey. He charges me with persona- 
lity — and I owe no obligation to him 
for his forbearance. After repeating iny. 
signature no less than nine times, he 
cavils, because the initials of my 
name are taken from the alphabet. If it 
will be more to his satisfaction, he may 
now see the whole complement, and all 
derived from the same source. 
Natuan YooseEtr. 
Sept. 10th, 1825. 
P.S. On another subject may I be per- 
mitted to state, that I have been a constant 
yeader of the M.M. for the Jast thirteen 
years, and I am sorry to find the list and 
substance of the Acts of the British Legisla- 
ture left out by your late arrangement : 
I considered it very useful to refer to. 
[We take the opportunity ofinforming our 
correspondent and our readers in general, 
that the omission of the abridgment of the 
acts of the session, is no intentional part of 
our new arrangement. It is the anxious 
wish of the present Editor to improve all, 
to add as much as he can, and to omit 
nothing of the original plan of the M.M. 
But dithiculties have occurred, with respect 
to this article, which cannot here be ex- 
plained, but which he still trusts will shortly 
be overcome, and the deficiency supplied. 
—EpIr.] 
— > 
To 4 editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
IR: 
HAVE observed, with much plea- 
sure, the announcements in your 
useful work (particularly in pages 277. 
and 278) of the many new and grand 
streets which have been projected for 
the improvement and embellishing of 
_ our metropolis; and am desirous of 
. suggesting the opening of two or three 
short streets, which would greatly im- 
prove a principal thoroughfare through 
London, from the west to the east; I 
mean that from Piccadilly through Fins- 
bury-square to Whitechapel, which is 
greatly impeded by the necessity a tra- 
veller finds, when arrived at the end of 
Great Queen-street, of turning at right 
angles through the narrow part of Lit- 
tle Queen-street, into the almost equally 
narrow and thronged part of Holborn: 
which inconvenience might be avoided 
by cutting a short wide street, in an 
east north-east direction, from the end 
of Great Queen-street into the wide 
ae of Holborn, at. the north end of 
Little Turnstile, This new street should 
be connected with the north end of 
Metéoric Stone. 
[Nov. 1," 
Gate-street ; and also Great Turnstile 
should be widened for more effectually. 
opening Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields from the 
north-east and north-west. : 
Your’s, &c. Joun Farry, Sen. 
44, Lincoln’ s-Inn-Fields. ; 
, —=——— 2 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Sir: “s 
N the notices of Foreign Societies in” 
your last Number (for August), it will 
be in the recollection of your readers, is 
a curious account of a meteoric: stone, 
mentioned by Baron Humboldt. In con- 
nexion with this, a brief description of 
one which fell at Nanjemoy, Maryland, 
on the 10th February of this year, may, 
perhaps, be acceptable. When it fell, 
the sky was somewhat hazy ; about nocn 
the inhabitants of the town and adjacent 
country were alarmed by an explosion, 
succeeded bya loud whizzing noise, like 
that of air rushing through a nurrow 
aperture, and which seemed to be ra- 
pidly passing from N.W. to §.E., nearly 
parallel with the Potomac river. Shortly. 
after, a spot of ground in the plantation 
of Capt. W. D. Harrison, surveyor of 
the port, was found to be broken up, 
and upon examination a rough stone, 
weighing 16 lb. 7 oz., was found about 
eighteen inches or two feet below the 
surface ; which, when taken up, about. 
half an hoar (as it is thought) after it had. 
fallen, was still warm, and had a strong 
sulphureous smell. The surface was hard 
and vitreous, and, when it was broken, 
it appeared composed of an earthy or 
siliceous matrix of a light slate colour, 
containing numerous globules of various 
sizes, very hard and of a brownish hue, 
together with small portions of brownish. 
yellow pyrites, which became dark when 
reduced to powder, Various notions 
were formed by the people around 
(who, to'anextent of upwards of eighteen 
or twenty miles round, heard the noise ; 
some, of the explosion, others, of the 
whizzing through the air), as to the sud- 
den appearance of the stone. Some con- 
ceived it to havebeen, by some unknown 
force, propelled from a quarry (eight or 
ten miles distant) on the opposite . side 
of the river ; while others thought it had 
been thrown from a mortar belonging 
to.a vessel lying in the offing, and ac- 
tually proposed manning boats to wreak 
vengeance on the captain and his crew 
for their audacity. All agreed that the 
noise seemed to come directly over their 
heads. One gentleman, living twenty.- 
five miles off, asserted that’ it shook his 
plantation as though there was an earth- 
; quake ; 
