350 Account of a Meteoric Stone 
compact is the crust, and vice versé. On the blackest crusts, 
elevations or swellings are observed, which have the appearance 
of being the produce af an ebullition suddenly interrupted. 
I had almost forgot to say that some persons in the village of 
Chassigny and parts adjacent, who happened to be sitting om 
the ground, thought they felt the shock of an earthquake during 
the detonation ; but the peasant who saw the stone fall expe- 
rienced no such sensation. I ought to inform you also, that at 
the bottom of the hole made by the fall of the stone there was 
a piece of the lava of the country, which might induce one to 
believe that the aérolite was broken only in consequence of 
meeting with a hard body; but what appears to contradict this 
is, that none of the aérolite remained in this hole; that, on the 
contrary, all the fragments were dispersed in such minute pieces 
that it seemed rather as if they were the consequence of an ex- 
plosion than of a fracture occasioned by the fall:—finally, se- 
veral small pieces were inbedded deeply in the earth around the 
hole. Besides all this, the smoke perceived at the moment of 
the fall denotes something else than a simple fracture: yet it is 
astonishing that an explosion did not scatter the fragments 
further ; for one piece which was found a few days afterwards, 
could not have been sent there since the fall, and as a conse- 
quence of the explosion, but seems rather to ‘have fallen at the 
same time with that which was separated into so many parts, 
Analysis of the above Aérolite, by M. Vavavetn. 
Physical Characters. 
1. Colour: brown externally, pearl gray internally. 
2. Contexture; gtainy, and broken in every direction. 
3. Solidity: very slight, crumbling with the greatest facility. 
4. Aspect: shining, and as if varnished. 
5. Sound: none. Although it appears to have been roasted, 
it has not the dryness nor the hardness of glass when it is 
broken: it seems on the contrary to be soft under the pestle, 
which soon pounds it. 
6. It has no action on the magnetic needle, and yet the crust 
with which it is covered has aslight effect: this announces that 
it contains iron in the state of oxide. 
7. Itforms a jelly with the acids. Hence it must be concluded 
that the silex is therein combined with some principle. 
Analysis. 
Without entering into large details on the means employed to 
analyse this aérolite, I am nevertheless of opinion that it will 
not be useless rapidly to explain the course which I pursued. 
I subjected 
