22G Accotmt of a Pim-lBall whicli fell 



The largest of these stones when broken still exh;\lc a 

 strong sulphureous odour from their interior parts. That 

 of their surface has vanished, and the smallest exhale no 

 sensible odour, so that the odour of the former seems also 

 from its nature likely to be dissipated in the course of time. 



These are so many physical proofs which attest that the 

 meteoric stones of the neighbourhood of Laigle are foreign 

 to the places where they have been found 5 that tliey were 

 conveyed thither exactly at the time of the explosion, and 

 by a cause which has modified the principles they contain. 



If we now consult the moral testimonies, what do we 

 find ? Twenty hamlets, dispersed in an extent of more 

 than two leagues square, almost all the inhabitants of which 

 declare themselves to have been eye-witnesses of the me- 

 teor, attest that a dreadful shower of stones was projected 

 from it. Among the number there arc men, women, and 

 children. They are simple and unlettered peasants, labourers 

 possessed of strong natural sense and reason ; respectable 

 ecclesiastics, and young people who havinu; been military 

 men are free from the illusions of fear. All these persons, 

 of professions, manners, and opinions so diflerent, who had 

 very little or no mtercourse with each other, agree in attest- 

 ing the same fact, which they had no interest to invent: 

 they all refer it to the same day, the same hour, and the 

 same moment, makino- uf-e of the same comparisons; and 

 this fact, so strongly and so generally attested, is only a 

 consecjuenee of the physical proofs previously collected ; 

 which is, that stones of a peculiar nature fell in that coun- 

 try immediately after the explosion of April 2(). 



Besides, traces which strongly attest the fall of thesd 

 masses, never mentioned without terror, are still shown. 

 The inhabitants say that they saw them descend along the 

 roofs of the houses like hail, break the branches of the 

 trees, and rebound after they fell on the pavement. They 

 say they saw the earth snioke around the largest of them, 

 and that they still burnt alter they were in their hands. 

 These accounts are given and the traces shown only in a 

 certain extent. It is there only that meteoric stone: are 

 found on the ground. Not a fragiiient is found beyond 

 that district, and there is not a single person who pretends 

 to have seen any of them fall beyond it. 



A third kind of proof results from certain physical pecu- 

 liarities uniformly related by the inhabitants of the country, 

 who are too little enlijxhtened to have foreseen the conse- 

 quences. I here allude to the successive changes observed 

 in the hardness of the stones and in the odour exhaled j 



ehamjes 



