Account of a Fall of Aerolites. 25 



ance of a small cloud, which seems to have accompanied the 

 pieteor, and even to have preceded it a few seconds. This small 

 white cloud, grayish in the centre, appeared to move vvitli the 

 greatest rapidity over the district where the meteor fell. In 

 <)ther |)arts, and particularly from the spot where I observed it, 

 it seemed stationary before the explosion. It has been generally 

 admitted tlir.t tliis small cloud had a roundish forsn. Scarcely 

 was it perceived in the communes where the uranolites fell, when 

 the explosion, accompanied by lightning, was heard. At the 

 very instant the cloud appeared to be divided into three or four 

 parts which were rapidly jjrecipitated towards tlie ground, leaving 

 behind tliem irizations of a blueish colour and the point of 

 which v.as red. From the position which I occupied, it was seen 

 directly in the north, inclining a little to the nortli-west. It seemed 

 then to l.'e immoveable; but at the moment of the detonation it 

 seemed to advance very rapidly towards the south, forming two 

 points which were ]3rolonged in the sky, and which the peasants 

 unanimously compared to long cords. After this sudden move- 

 ment, tlie small clouds which had attained nearly my zenith, 

 considerably diminished, stopped, l)ecame immoveable, and ended 

 by being insensibly dissolved at the same place. It cannot be 

 doubted, Itliinl;, that the instantaneous appearance of this cloud 

 insulated in a sky absolutely deprived of all vapour, is not con- 

 nected v\-itli the meteor. It has !)een observed under the same 

 forms, nearly in every place where the detonation was heard, 

 and its immoveability, notwithstanding the strong wind which 

 then blew, proves that it must have been very high in the air. 

 We cannot, I think, refrain from regarding it as the produce of 

 the gases emanated from the stoney mass which, when heated 

 by the friction which it underwent in traversing the atmosphere, 

 allowed them to escape under the form of a condensed vapour. 

 The r.e'rjlons appearance which residted must have given rise to 

 several opticii! illusions on the part of the spectators, who before 

 the explosion had no interest in observing it. To those who were 

 close to the place where it fell, it seemed to m.ove with a great 

 rapidity: to those who were like myself, four or five leagues 

 towards the soutli it appeared stationary. In advancing di- 

 rectly opposite to the latter, it nnist in fact have apj)eared to 

 them without motion, until the exjjlosion made it assume another 

 form, and until, as it approached their zenith, they must have 

 perceived its progressive motion. This cloud must therefore have 

 been the result of the gases developed in the l)osom of the mass, 

 which nuist have in the first place formed around a spherule of 

 vapours, and which being more and more rarefied, as the mas» 

 approached the surface of the earth, must have caused its ex- 

 j)losion. To 



