314 Fun Mons. 



phaeiiomenon always takes place in open groiuidii, and where, 

 without finding much resistance, the stone may sink into the 

 ground : therefore, they do not fall, Ijut are formed of the sub- 

 stance of the soil which the lightning puts in a state of fusion. 

 If this substance he pure sllex, the stone forms rock crystal 

 rounded like Hint. If it be a mixed soil, the flux is also mixed, 

 and some of its oxides may by tlie force of the fire be reduce«l, 

 nav it is even compounded into metal. Let the stone be weighed, 

 and let us measure the metrical capacity of the hole which it 

 lias formed ; the difference will nut be great. 



" I saw when a young man a meteoric stone fall, as it was 

 called. A globe of fire, fiat in front and lengthening behind into 

 a tail, advanced towards me. gradually coming nearer the ground 

 until it was at the distance of thirty paces : an explosion took 

 place on the ground, with a repeated cracking noise, projecting 

 a whirlwind of dust into the air, and giving out a sulphurous smell 

 wliich affected me. After the dust was allayed, I approached 

 the place where the explosion took place ; and 1 there found in 

 a hole broader than it was deep, a stone partly gray, partly 

 brown, and which exhibited rather a conglomeration than a 

 flux ; and there was no portion of reduced metal foni^id. I 

 formed at that instant the same idea of its origin which 1 now 

 entertain of all the other stones of that nature. I regarded it as 

 proceeding from the flux of the soil: supposing it to be of celes- 

 tial extraction, it must have travelled in the centre of the in- 

 flamed globe, vvhich would have been too grand an escort for a 

 stone so coarse. Subsequently I analysed this stone, which might 

 be a foot in circumference, and I therein found plenty of sand, 

 argil, lime, carbon, and iron ; I sent the remainder to M. De- 

 lametherie. It was on a road made across a heath that I found 

 this stone: it preserved a very strong heat for a long time. 



I'he sub -oxygenated chlorine of Davy, &c. which Gay-Lussac 

 had already obtained, may be regarded as an oxygenate of this body, 

 and which has elements as if chlorine and euchlorine were united 

 together. Tlie chlorine is a salt, in which the oxygen performs 

 the function of an acid, and the dry muriatic acid, the function 

 of an oxide: an addition of oxygen renders it oxygenule, and still 

 more renders it oxygenously dissolved: then it is in the state of 

 euchlorine. I say that in the chlorine the acid ])erforms the 

 office of an oxide, because it is that which displaces caloric from 

 the oxygen ; the second oxygen also undergoes this displace- 

 ment ; but t!ie third oxygen must bring caloric, because it ought 

 to replace that which the muriatic acid has displaced from the 

 two oxygens, salification and oxygenulation : of this the solution 

 eonsists. 



" Berthollet has recognised a state of chlorine in vvhich the 



muriatic 



