NOTES. XX111 



again found there, I subjoin the passage which Pertz has made known from 

 the " Chronicon Benedict! monachi Sancti Andrete in Monte Soracte," a docu- 

 ment belonging to the tenth century, and which is preserved in the Chigi 

 Library at Rome. The barbarous Latin of the period has been left unaltered i 

 "Anno 921 temporibus domini Johannis Decimi pape, in anno pontifi- 

 catus, illius 7 visa sunt signa. Nam iuxta urbem Romam lapides plurimi de 

 coelo cadere visi sunt. In civitate quEe vocatur Narnia, tarn diri ac tetri, ut 

 nihil aliud credatur, quam de infernalibus locis deducti essent. Nam ita ex 

 illis lapidibus unus omnium maximus est, ut decidens in flumen Nanras, ad 

 mensuram unius cubiti super aquas fluminis usque hodie videretur. Nam et 

 ignita3 faculse de coelo plurimse omnibus in hac civitate Romani populi visse 

 sunt, ita ut pene terra contingeret. Alise cadentes," &c. (Pertz, Monum. 

 Germ. Hist. Scriptores, T. iii. p. 715). Respecting the aerolite at ^Egos 

 Potamos, the fall of which is placed by the Parian Chronicle in the 7S'l Olym. 

 (Bockh, Corp. Inscr. Grsec. T. ii. pp. 302, 320, and 340), compare Aristot. 

 Meteor, i. 7 (Ideler, Comm. T. i. pp. 404407) ; Stob. Eel. Phys. i. 25, 

 p. 508, Heeren; Plut. Lys. c. 12; Diog. Laert. ii. 10. (See also in the 

 sequel Notes 69, 87, 88, and 89.) According to a Mongolian popular tradi- 

 tion, there is in a plain near the sources of the Yellow River in Western 

 China, a fragment of black rock 40 French feet high which fell from heaven. 

 (Abel-Remusat, in Lametherie's Journ. de Phys. 1819, Mai, p. 264). 



() p. 110. Biot, TraitS d' Astronomic Physique (3 me e'dition), 1841, T.i. 

 pp. 149, 177, 238, and 312. My illustrious friend, Poisson, attempted to 

 solve the difficulty, attendant on the assumption of the spontaneous ignition of 

 meteoric stones at a height where the density of the atmosphere is almost in- 

 sensible, in a very peculiar manner : " A une distance de la terre ou la densite 

 de 1' atmosphere est tout-a-fait insensible, il seroit difficile d'attribuer, comme 

 on le fait, Fincandesceuce des aerolites a un frottement centre les molecules de 

 1'air. Ne pourrait-on pas supposer que le fluide electrique, a 1'ttat ncutre, forme 

 une sorte d'atmosphere, qui s'etend beaucoup au-dela de la masse d'air ; qui 

 est soumise a 1'attraction de la terre, quoique physiquement imponderable ; et 

 qui suit, en consequence, notre globe dans ses mouvements? Dans cette 

 hypothese, les corps dont il s'agit, en entrant dans cette atmosphere impon- 

 derable, decomposeraient le fluide neutre, par leur action inegale sur lea 

 deux electricites, et ce serait en s'electrisant qu'ils s'echaufferaient et devien- 

 draient incandescents." (Poisson, Rech. sur la Probabilite des Jugements, 

 1837, p. 6). 



() p. 111. Phil. Trans. Vol. xxix. pp. 161163. 



