24 Account (fq Fall of 'Aerolites. 



alarm some persons, and the concussion of the air was such as 

 to shake the doors and windows of certain liouses ; while at Pav- 

 mirol, two leagues to the eastward of Agen, these effects were 

 less sensil)le ; and at Mczin. St. Macaire, Basas, and Condon, 

 situated five or six kilometres from the focus of tlie explosion, 

 it was heard in a \er\ indistinct manner. 



At the end of this phaenomenon, which, considering tlie state 

 of the atmosphere, could not he occasioned hy any storm, we 

 were led to expect a fall of these meteoric stones, which has al- 

 ways been preceded by similar detonations. We soon learned, 

 in fact, that this fall, accompanied Ijy a kind of lightning, had 

 taken place in the comnumes above named. From the written 

 and verbal reports which have readied us, the number and vo- 

 lume of these stones appears to have been considerai)]e. Some 

 were sent to tlie prefect who has communicated them to the mi- 

 nister of the interior: others were distributed among the curious 

 in various parts of France, while manv were picked up by the 

 peasantsand venerated as relicjues.Two are mentioned as weighing 

 eighteen jwunds each. It seems that they were not found warm 

 at the moment of their fall : the heaviest were sunk into a com- 

 pact soil to the deptli of eight or nine inches, and one of them 

 rebounded three or four feet from the ground. It is added, that 

 these stones fell obliquely, making an angle of from Gf) to 70 de- 

 grees with the horizontal line; finally, that they diverged in 

 their fall, affecting various directions in the different communes 

 where they fell. Like all those which have come from similar 

 meteors, they appeared to be fragments of more considerable 

 masses, and are perfectly homogeneous. All the specimens of 

 these stones which I saw, present no character to the eve which 

 can make them be distinguished from those which I have hi- 

 therto had occasion to examine, or which I have in my cabinet : 

 they merely seemed to be nioie friable and more porous than 

 the latter. I have remarked in some fragments globulous bodies, 

 sinjilar to those which Mr. Howard found in a great quantity in 

 the uranolites of Benares, and which are composed, according 

 to him, of abundance of silex with a little oxide of iron. We 

 observed also in the interior of those stones, that the pyrites which 

 they contain are sometimes crystullized in a group. All of them 

 are covered externally with a black crust of the thickness of a 

 quarter of a line nearly, which announces the action of fire, as 

 we see in all the stones of the same kind. Two of our corre- 

 spondents inform us that one of them exhibits singular im- 

 pressions at the surface, but it is necessary to verify this. 



In fact, of all the peculiarities which the phaenomenon pre- 

 sented, the most remarkable is the very simultaneous appear- 

 ance 



