212 METEORIC STONES. 



supposition, than that of the stones having fallen from the 

 air, and in a state of fusion. That they broke the roofs of 

 houses, and were found above pieces of straw adhering to 

 them, is the clearest of all proofs of their having fallen from 

 above. 



Although, nothing can be more pointed and specific than 

 this evidence, it yet derives great confirmation from the 

 similar accoimts which have still more recently been com- 

 municated. On the 18th December 1795, the weather being 

 cloudy, several persons in the neighbourhood of Captain 

 Topham's house, in Yorkshire, heard a loud noise in the air, 

 followed by a hissing sound, and afterwards felt a shock, as if 

 a heavy body had fallen to the ground at a little distance 

 from them. One of these, a ploughman, saw a huge stone 

 falling towards the earth, eight or nine yards from the place 

 where he stood. It was seven or eight yards from the ground 

 when he first observed it. It threw up the mould on every 

 side, and buried itself twenty-one inches. This man, assisted 

 by others who were near the spot at the time, immediately 

 raised the stone, and found that it weighed about 56 lib. 

 These statements have been authenticated by the signatures 

 of the people who made them. 



On the 17th March 1798, a body, burning very brightly, 

 passed over the vicinity of Ville Franche, on the Saone, 

 accompanied with a hissing noise, and leaving a luminous 

 track behind it. It exploded with great noise, about twelve 

 hundred feet from the ground ; and one of the shivers, still 

 luminous, being observed to fall in a neighbouring vineyard, 

 was traced. At that spot, a stone above a foot in diameter, 

 was found to have penetrated about twenty inches into the 

 soil. It was sent to M. Sage, of the National Institute, accom- 

 panied by a narrative of the foregoing circumstances, under 

 the hand of an intelligent eyewitness. 



While these observations in Europe were daily confirming 

 the original but long-exploded idea of the vulgar, that many 

 of the luminous meteors observed in our horizon are masses of 

 ignited matter, an account of a phenomenon, precisely of the 



