352 Aerolite of Maryland. 
February 10th, 1825. The sky was rather hazy, and tle 
wind south-west. At about noon the people of the town, 
and of the adjacent country were alarmed by an ex- 
plosion of some body in the air, which was succeeded by a 
loud whizzing noise, like that of air rushing through a small 
aperture, passing rapidly in the course from north-west to 
south-east, nearly parallel with the river Potomac. Shortly 
after, a spot of ground on the plantation of Capt. Wm. D. 
Harrison, surveyor of this port, was feund to have been 
recently broken, and on examination a rough stone of an 
oblong shape, weighing sixteen pounds and seven ounces, 
was found about 18 inches under the surface. The stone 
when taken from the ground, about half an hour after it is 
supposed to have fallen, was sensibly warm, and had a strong 
sulphureous smell. {thas a hard vitreous surface, and when 
broken appears composed of an earthy or siliceous matrix of 
a light slate colour, containing numerous globules of various 
sizes, very hard and of a brown colour, together with smalk 
portions of brownish yellow pyrites, which become dark 
coloured on being reduced to powder. | have procured for 
you a fragment* of the stone weighing four pounds and ten 
ounces, which was all | could obtain. Various notions were 
entertained by. the people in the neighbourhood on finding 
he stone. Some supposed it propelled from a quarry 8 or 
10 miles distant on the opposite side of the river; while 
others thought it thrown by a mortar froma packet lying at 
anchor in the river, and even proposed‘nanning boats to take 
vengeance on the captain and crew of the vessel. 
} have conversed with many persons living over an extent 
of perhaps lifty miles square—some heard the explosion, 
while others heard only the subsequent whizzing noise in the. 
air. All agree in stating that the noise appeared directly 
over their heads. One gentleman, living about 25 miles from 
the place where the stone feli. says that it caused his whole 
plantation to shake, which many supposed to be the effect of 
an earthquake. I cannot learn that any fireball or any light 
was seen in the heavens—all are confident that there was but 
one report ; and no peculiar smell in the air was noticed. 
I herewith transmit the statement’of Capt. Harrison, the 
gentleman on whose plantation the stone fell. 
* 
te not vet received By 
oJ i+ J BAD 
