METEORIC STONES. 209 



twelve o'clock, A.M., a dreadful thunder-clap was heard at 

 Ensisheim, and that a child saw a huge stone fall on a field 

 sowed with wheat. It had entered the earth to the depth of 

 three feet ; it was then removed, found to weigh 260 lib., 

 and exposed to public view. The defect in Gassendi's rela- 

 tion is here supplied ; for we have the nature of the ground 

 distinctly described : the natives of the place must have 

 known that in their wheat-field no such stone had formerly 

 existed: but the evidence of its having actually been ob- 

 served to fall is by no means so decisive as that of Gassendi. 



Other recitals have been given of similar appearances, but 

 by no means so well authenticated, or so fully examined, 

 although somewhat nearer our own times. In 1672, one of 

 the members of the Abbe Bourdelot's academy presented at 

 one of the meetings, a specimen of two stones which had 

 lately fallen near Verona ; the one weighed 300, the other 

 200 lib. The phenomenon, he stated, had been seen by 

 three or four hundred persons. The stones fell in a sloping 

 direction during the night, and in calm weather. They 

 appeared to burn, fell with a great noise, and ploughed up the 

 ground. They were afterwards taken from thence, and sent 

 to Verona. This account, it may be observed, was published in 

 the same year. Paul Lucas the traveller relates, that when he 

 was at Larissa, in 1706, a stone of 72 lib. weight fell in the 

 neighbourhood. It was observed, he says, to come from the 

 north, with a loud hissing noise, and seemed to be enveloped 

 in a small cloud, which exploded when the stone fell. It 

 smelt of sulphur, and looked like iron dross. 



M. De la Lande, in 1756, published an account of a phe- 

 nomenon very nearly resembling the above, but deficient in 

 several points of direct evidence. His narrative, however, 

 deserves our attention, because he seems to have been upon 

 the spot, and to have examined, with great care, the truth of 

 the circumstances which he describes. In September 1753, 

 during an extremely clear and hot day, a noise was heard in 

 the neighbourhood of Pont-de-Vesle, resembling the discharge 

 of artillery. It was so loud as to reach several leagues in all 



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