METEOKS. 



METHODISTS. 



431 



looking rock, nearly buried in the ground, and still 

 warm." 



Major Slass, editor of The Aldbamian and Times, 

 in this place, has taken considerable trouble to col- 

 lect all the information he could on the subject. He 

 says that "the noise was heard for several miles 

 around, before the final explosion. It burst, appar- 

 ently, over the heads of twenty men, who were at 

 work felling wood, one and a quarter miles from Mr. 

 Hooper's house. One piece appeared to go southeast, 

 another southwest, and the third northwest. There 

 were afterward heard the reports, resembling the 

 bursting of shells. One piece was heard to fall some 

 distance from Mr. Hooper's, making a loud, crashing 

 noise, and frightening a lot of hogs near by. 



The reports resembling artillery were plainly heard 

 for twenty or twenty-five miles east and west of 

 Frankfort, and from fifteen to twenty north. I have 

 no information as to the south. Mr. Hooper deserves 

 much credit for noting the particulars of the fall, and 

 for sending the meteorite for analysis and description. 

 He refused^ with scorn, money offers that must have 

 been tempting to a person of limited income, prefer- 

 ring the advancement of science to dollars and cents. 



In a personal interview he told me that he was 

 sitting by a fire with his family when he heard the 

 first noise. He instantly arose and walked forty or 

 fifty yards from the house before the meteorite fell. 

 His sister, Miss Hooper, living near, called to her 

 brother, to " run quickly, the house is on fire don't 

 you hear it?" Mr. H. thinks it was three or four 

 minutes from the first noise until its fall. The place 

 where it struck the ground is a partially-decomposed 

 conglomerate, mixed with vegetable mould. The 

 fracture was made by striking a fragment of lime- 

 stone rock. 



Prof. Brush, assisted by Mr. TVm. G. Mixter, 

 made an analysis of portions of the stone, with 

 the following result, from which it appears that 

 silica and alkalies constituted the mass. of the 

 material, and that iron was present in a com- 

 paratively small quantity : 



Silica 51.33 



Alumina 8.05 



Ferrous oxide 13.70 



Chromic oxide 0.42 



Magnesia 17.59 



Lime 7.03 



Soda 0.45 



Potash 0.22 



Sulphur 0.23 



Nickelifcrous iron tr. 



99.02 



Prof. Brush remarks that, in general phys- 

 ical characters, this meteorite very much re- 

 sembles the Petersburg (Tenn.) meteoric stone 

 analyzed and described by Prof. <J. Lawrence 

 Smith. It has the same lustrous coating, and 

 the constituent minerals are very much the 

 same in character. It seems to helong to the 

 class of meteorites that Prof. G-. Rose calls 

 u Howardite," and which he describes as being 

 granular mixtures of olivine, with a white 

 silicate (anorthite?) and a small amount of 

 chromite and nickeliferous iron. This class, 

 according to Rose, includes the stones from 

 Loutalox, Bialystok, Massing, Nobleborough, 

 and Mallygaum. 



p " The most remarkable meteorite chronicled 

 during the year was that seen in a portion of 

 Western Ohio, and most clearly near the town 

 of Forest, latitude 40 50', longitude TV. 84" 



Oxygen. 

 26.37 



3.75 

 3.04 



7.04 



2.06 

 .11 



12.28 



40'. About 3 A. M. of October 27th, the citizens 

 of Forest, and for a region miles around, were 

 roused from sleep by a series of loud reports 

 like the discharge of artillery. The intervals 

 between the sounds were from one second to 

 two or three seconds. Houses were shaken and 

 windows rattled by the concussion. At the 

 same time the sky was brilliantly lighted up. 

 Mr. Pierson, of Patterson, a village about one 

 mile west of Forest, looking out to discover the 

 cause of these strange phenomena, saw what 

 looked like a ball of fire, " apparently about as 

 large as a bucket," approaching from a direc- 

 tion nearly south 35 west. It was exceedingly 

 bright and dazzling, and had a luminous tail, 

 seemingly thirty feet long and three feet wide. 

 It vanished or exploded nearly overhead. In 

 a paper upon the subject in the November 

 Journal of Science, Prof. J. L. Smith, the inde- 

 fatigable investigator of this class of wonders, 

 sums up the evidence which he had been able 

 to collect with reference to it. He says : 



At Findlay, twenty miles northwest of ForesL the 

 statement is, that there at about three o'clock on Wed- 

 nesday morning, October 28th, the inhabitants were 

 aroused by a terrific explosion somewhere in the upper 

 regions. 



The night was one of clear moonlight, and exceed- 

 ingly cold for the season. The night watchmen had 

 witnessed it ; and one says that he first saw it in the 

 southeast, in size, seemingly, as large as a beer-keg, 

 and of intense brightness : that it descended, leaving 

 a luminous streak behind, and that, when near the 

 earth, it exploded with a terrific sound, and fierce 

 brightness ; that the light, after the explosion, took 

 a southerly course, and disappeared. Another watch- 

 man reports that at the time of the explosion it ap- 

 peared as large as a load of hay, and that the sound 

 of the explosion was stunning, not like a quick, sharp 

 report of thunder, but, as he termed it, more like the 

 coming together of railroad-cars, but much louder, 

 and that the light was brighter than that of the sun. 

 The direction 01 the meteor from Fiiidlay , as given by 

 the watchman, with the bearing of the meteor's path, 

 as described by Mr. Pierson, of Patterson, and tho 

 fact that to many the sound seemed nearly overhead, 

 would indicate that it exploded or terminated its 

 course in the vicinity of Forest ; yet a careful inves- 

 tigation might prove its terminus to be many miles 

 from that place. The sound seems to have been 

 heard for perhaps fifty miles around, if not more. 

 The stones or fragments that have fallen may never 

 be found, owing to the fact that the explosion was at 

 night, and the consequent difficulty of determining 

 its exact locality. In Kenton, Ohio, the phenomena 

 are said to have occurred a few minutes before three 

 o'clock, and, consequently, they were not well ob- 

 served ; many persons saw the light but not the me- 

 teor, and all were sensible of the shock and sound. 

 The meteor did not pass this place nearer than twenty 

 miles, and the best judges give its duration at from 

 two to three minutes from the flash to the explosion. 

 The sound was of such force as to shake the nouses, 

 and many believed it to be an earthquake. 

 . These are all the statements I have^een able to 

 obtain in regard to the appearance of this meteor and 

 its accompanying phenomena. It was beyond all 

 doubt a meteorite, and I am using all possible means 

 to discover any fragments that may have fallen. 



METHODISTS. I. METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

 CHURCH. At the close of the year 1869, the 

 statistics of the Methodist Episcopal Church 

 were as follows : 



