210 METEORIC STONES. 



directions. At Liponas, three leagues from Pont-de-Vesle, a 

 hissing sound was remarked ; and at this place, as well as at 

 Pont-de-Yesle, a blackish mass was found to have fallen in 

 ploughed ground, with such a force as to penetrate half a foot 

 into the soil. The largest of these bodies weighed 20 lib. ; 

 and they both alike appeared, on the surface, as if they had 

 been exposed to a violent degree of heat. It may here be 

 observed, that the small depth at which these bodies were 

 found in the ploughed land, renders it in the highest degree 

 improbable that they should have existed there previously to 

 the time of the explosion. To the same purpose we may 

 remark the complete resemblance of the two masses found at 

 so great a distance from each other. 



In the year 1768, no less than three stones were presented 

 to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, all of which were said to 

 have fallen in different parts of France ; one in the Maine, 

 another in Artois, and the third in theCotentin. These were 

 all externally of the very same appearance ; and Messrs. Fouge- 

 raux, Cadet, and Lavoisier drew up a particular report upon 

 the first of them. They state, that on the 18th of September 

 1768, between four and five o'clock in the evening, there 

 was seen near the village of Luce, a cloud in which a short 

 explosion took place, followed by a hissing noise, without 

 any flame ; that some persons about three leagues from Luce, 

 heard the same ^ound, and, looking upwards, perceived an 

 opaque body which was describing a curve line in the air, and 

 was about to fall upon a piece of green turf in the neighbour- 

 ing high road ; that they immediately ran to this place, and 

 found a kind of stone, half buried in the earth, extremely hot, 

 and about 1\ lib. weight. This account of the fact was 

 communicated to the academicians by the Abbe Bachelay. 

 But they do not appear to have attached much credit to the 

 whole circumstances of his narrative ; for they conclude 

 (chiefly from several experiments made to analyze it) that 

 the stone did not fall upon the earth, but was there before 

 the thunder-clap, and was only heated and exposed to view 

 by the stroke of the electric fluid. 



