54 Professor Giraud's Account of Two Aerolites, 



specimens of aerolites, and one of meteoric iron, that have recently 

 been found in Western India. 



Aerolite from Dharwar. — About one o'clock p.m. of the 15th of 

 February of last year, this aerolite fell in a field to the south of Ne- 

 gloor, a village situated within a few miles of the junction of the 

 Wurda and Toomboodra rivers, and belonging to the Gootul division 

 of the Ranee-Bednoor Talook of the Dharwar collectorate. 



The fall of this aerolite is most satisfactorily established. A cul- 

 tivator of Negloor, named Ninga, was driving his cattle out to graze 

 close by whei'e it fell ; at the hour above mentioned, he suddenly 

 heard a loud, whirring, rushing noise in the air, but on looking up 

 could see nothing. An instant afterwards, however, he observed a 

 cloud of dust rise from a spot in an adjoining field, as if something 

 had struck the ground there with violence. At this time several 

 other villagers were standing by a threshing-floor, close at hand ; 

 they also heard the noise, and called out to Ninga, asking whether 

 he had done so. He replied. Yes, and that something had fallen in 

 the next field, where he saw the dust rise; and on his pointing to 

 the spot, the whole party proceeded thither. There they found a 

 stone, broken into fragments, imbedded in a hole, which they com- 

 pared to the print of a young elephant's foot. They were naturally 

 much puzzled to account for the appearance of the stone, which alto- 

 gether differed from any to be met with in their neighbourhood, and 

 at length they were constrained to conclude that it had fallen from 

 the heavens. The circumstance seemed so extraordinary, that one 

 of them was immediately sent to summon the Patel of the village, 

 who soon arrived, attended by a crowd of people, who had also heard 

 the wonderful tidings. 'Ihese, too, unanimously adopted the same 

 conclusion regarding the fall of the stone, the fragments of which the 

 Patel took into his charge, and wrote a report of the whole circum- 

 stances to the ^lahulkarree of Gootul, who is the revenue and police 

 officer of the district in which Negloor is situate. 'J'he Mahulkar- 

 ree thought the Patel's report so extraordinary, that he determined 

 at once to proceed to Negloor himself to inquire into its truth. After 

 having examined the stone itself, and the hule in the ground made 

 by its fall, and finding that all the accounts of the villagers agreed, 

 he could not avoid concluding, as they did, that it fell from the sky. 

 He, moreover, took statements in writing from the cultivator Ninga 

 and another, who had heard the rushing noise made l)y the stone in 

 its passage through the air, and forwarded their depositions, with his 

 own reports^ and the fragments of the aerolite, to Mr Goldfinch, the 

 the assistant-collector and .magistrate in charge of the district, by 

 whom they were given to Captain G. Wingate, of the Bombay En- 

 gineers, who presented them to the Bombay Geographical Society, 

 and by the secretary to this institution the fragments of the stone 

 were UKide over to me for examination and analysis. 



The fragments of the stone being placed together, constituted a 

 mass of an ovoidal figui'e, measuring 15 inches round the larger, and 



