Miscellanies. A401 
and if the observations are accurate, the errors of construction cannot 
possibly amount to a mile on any one 
It may, be remarked that the velocity of this meteor is so great, that 
were it a body revolving about the sun, its orbit must be hyperbolic.— 
* H. in the Boston Courier. 
om”. Terrestrial origin of the alleged Meteoric rain in Hungary.—In 
the Allgemeine Zeitung, appeared last year a long account of a shower 
of vast numbers of small meteoric stones, which was asserted to have 
occurred at Iwan in Hungary, on the night of the 10th of August, 1841. 
Whether the story is wholly false or not, we are not informed; but an 
examination of the alleged meteorites, (the results of which appear in 
Poggendorff’s Annalen, 1841, No. 11,) shows that the stones are plain- 
ly of terrestrial origin. At the request of a society of naturalists in 
Vienna, Count Paul Szechenyi procured from his estate of Iwan, where 
this rain is said to have fallen, a mass of earth of a cubic foot in di- 
mensions, dug from a field, which had been three years in clover. 
This earth, which consisted of a very hard adhesive clay, was subject- 
ed to an examination, which resulted in the conviction, that the suppo- 
oe meteoric hail was only small grains of pisiform iron ore, (bog ore 
or Limonite,) which were found to be distributed throughout the mass, 
to a depth of atleast twelve inches from the surface, whereas the me- 
teorie’stones in question were said to have penetrated the soil ole to 
the depth of half an ioe 
8: Meteorology—To ss following important notice we invite the 
due attention. Prof. Espy has issued a “ circular,” which we have 
received, requesting all persons who keep or are disposed to keep 
journals of the weather in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, and 
the West Indies, to signify to him at Washington City, their willing- 
ness to furnish him with a copy of them monthly, and if they request 
it, blank forms will be sent them, with instructions how to observe. Mr. 
Espy is desirous of obtaining a journal of the weather for the evening 
and night of the 3d of September, 1821, in the N. W. corner of Con- 
api or 8. W. corner of Massachusetts. 
General’s Office, care of J. P. Espy, Washing. 
2. Solar Eclipse of July 8th, 1842.—We have been indulged with 
the perusal of a private letter from that excellent astronomer, Francis 
Baily, Esq., giving an account of this superb phenomenon as witnessed 
by himself at Pavia in Italy, eee ane ae te of central dark- 
Vol. xu, No. 2.—July-Sept. 1842, 
