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LV. Memoir on the Stones uhich have fallen from the 

 Atmosphere, and particularly near Laigle, in the Depart" 

 ment of I'Orne, on the 26th of April last. Read by . 

 C. FouRCRoy, in the pvhlic Sitting of' the Class of the 

 Mathematical and Philosophical Sciences of tlie Institute^ 

 June \Qth, 1S03. 



JNatcre sometimes exhibits to us facts insulated, as we 

 may say, and so difierent from any thing with which we 

 are acquainted, that their existence is long problematical 

 even to men who are most accustomed to observe its won- 

 derful works, and to calculate its powers. It was in this 

 nianucr that naturalists and philosophers for a long time 

 classed amona; fables and popular errors the fall of solid and 

 stony bodies on our globe. 



Exact accounts, however, which have been multiplied for 

 SIX or eight years past ; the coincidence of meteoric circum- 

 stances which in all these accounts accompany the princi- 

 pal phsenomenon ; the analogy of the form, structure, and 

 colour, observed in several of these stones, which have fallen 

 at difterent times and in different places very distant from 

 tach other; and the difficulty of referring these stones to 

 any of the species with which we are acquainted, induced 

 Mr. Howard, an English chemist, to analyse these produc- 

 tions hitherto so little known. 



By chemical examination he not only found that they 

 u-ere all composed of the same principles, but that there 

 was a striking dlft'erence between them and all the other 

 mineral substances hitherto analysed. He found that they, 

 contained in general from a fourth to two-thirds of their 

 weight of silex, a third of iron, a sixth or seventh of mag- 

 nesia, and some hundredth parts of sulphur and nickel. 

 He found also that the general mass of these stones con- 

 tains inclosed in it globules of iron allayed with nickel and 

 a little sulphur, and fragments of pyrites composed of sul- 

 phurated iron and nickel. 



C, Vauquelin obtained the same results from three of the 

 same stones analysed by Mr. Howard, and from two other* 

 that fell in France, one at Barbotan in 1789, and the other 

 at Creon, In the parish of .luliac, on July 24, 1790. 



The attention of philosophers was much excited by the 

 novelty of these results, while the ability of the chemists 

 >vho ]• resented them commanded the utmost confidence. 

 Jluice, instead of rejecting the existence of the plucnome- 



non. 



