116 



METEORITE. 



Meteorite, overturned ; and, as the King Maximilian was here, the 

 V ""Y""' Monday after St. Catherine's day of the same year, his 

 Royal Excellency ordered the stone which had fallen to 

 be brought to the castle, and, after having conversed a 

 long time about it with the noblemen, he said that the 

 people of Ensisheim should take it, and order it to be 

 hung up in the church, and not to allow any body to 

 take any thing from it. However, his Excellency took 

 two pieces from it, of which he kept one, and sent the 

 other to the Duke Sigismond of Austria, and they spoke 

 a great deal about that stone, which they suspended in 

 the choir, where it still is ; and a great many people 

 came to see it." According to Trithemius, it fell with 

 so much violence that it broke into two pieces, of which 

 only the most considerable was suspended in the church. 

 Paul Lang describes its form as corresponding to that 

 of the Greek Delta, with a triangular point. Both of 

 these writers lived at the period which they assign to 

 the descent of this remarkable mass ; and, although their 

 names are fast hastening to obscurity, it behoves us to 

 observe, that Trithemius yielded to few of his contem- 

 poraries in labour and learning, and that Lang, though 

 a Benedictine monk, travelled in quest of historical mo- 

 numents, and had the candour and boldness to arraign 

 the license of the Roman Catholic clergy, while he ap- 

 plauded the independence of Luther and Melancthon. 

 We may add, that Maximilian, who, shortly after this 

 period, was elevated to the imperial dignity, in a Re- 

 script, dated Augsburg, November 12, 1503, expressly 

 refers to the stone in question, as having fallen in an 

 open field before him, when he commanded the army 

 which he had levied against the French ; and that, 

 availing himself of the apparently miraculous event, he 

 exhorted the Germans to a new crusade against the 

 Turks. 



During the French Revolution, this large meteorite 

 was found still suspended in the church, but it weighed 

 only 1?1 Ib. The French removed it to the National 

 Library at Colmar, and, notwithstanding the many 

 fragments which have been detached from it, the mass 

 still weighs 150 Ib. A large specimen is preserved in 

 the Cabinet of the Parisian Museum, another in the Im- 

 perial Cabinet at Vienna, and we have seen another 

 small fragment in the valuable and interesting collec- 

 tion of Robert Ferguson of Raith, Esq. 



The Ensisheim stone is of a schistose texture, of a 

 slate-grey colour, and composed of small shining parti- 

 cles of granular portions of a whitish-grey, blended with 

 thin laminae of a slate-grey fissile substance, of grains 

 or globules of pure iron, and of grey and shining sul- 

 phuret of iron and nickel. The cross fracture is very 

 unequal, and the longitudinal waving, in the direction 

 of the laminae, and, at the same time, tough and harsh. 

 Such parts of the outer surface as remain entire are 

 coated with a blackish vitrified crust. It gives no ar- 

 gillaceous odour by insufflation ; and, under the blow- 

 pipe, the grey portions become black, and are converted 

 into frit. Its specific gravity is 3.23, and its analysis 

 yielded to Vataquelin, 



Silica 56. 



Lime 1.4. 



Magnesia 12. 



Oxide of iron, 30. 



Nickel 2.4 



Sulphur 3.5 



105.3 



Its principal peculiarity, therefore, is its schistose tex- 

 ture. 



Munkber- 

 gen. 



Showeri of 

 blood. 



Lombard/. 



January 28, 1496. Marcus Antonius Sabellicus, in Meteorite, 

 the second volume of the Lyons edition of his works, *"" *"Y~^ 

 (p. 341,) mentions the fall of three stones between Ce- Ce&ena, &c. 

 sena and Bertonosi. Bonfinius, or rather, we pre- 

 sume, his continuator, reports, that a shower of stones 

 fell near the village of Munkbergen in the course of 

 the same year, and that the inhabitants amused their 

 fancy by tracing on the fallen fragments outlines 

 of the human countenance and diadems. 1501. Ac- 

 cording to different chronicles, showers of blood fell 

 in several places. 1510. In the Commentary of Su- 

 rius, a Carthusian monk of Cologne, mention is made 

 of a shower of large stones in Lombardy ; they 

 are described, probably with some exaggeration, as 

 harder than flint, smelling of sulphur, &c. But the 

 same event is more particularly commemorated by Car- 

 dan, in his Treatise De Rerun Variclatc ; for he in- 

 forms us, that between Cremasco or Crema, and Milan, 

 and not far from the river Adda, at five o'clock in the 

 evening, about twelve hundred stones fell from the air, 

 one of which weighed 120 Ib. and another 60 Ib. Many 

 were presented as curiosities to the French Governor 

 and his Deputy. At three o'clock in the afternoon, 

 the sky appeared as if in a general blaze, and the pas- 

 sage, though somewhat ambiguous, would lead us to in- 

 fer, that the fiery meteor was visible for two hours. 

 Like many of the learned and unlearned of his day, 

 Cardan immediately connects the extraordinary appear- 

 ance with the political transactions of his petty district. 

 The same incident is noticed by Leonardus in his Mir- 

 ror of Stones, and by Bondini in his Thealrum Naturae. 

 The following passage is extracted from a series of Ob- 

 servations on Natural History, Meteorology, &c. made in 

 the early part of the 16th century, by Andrea da Prato 

 of Milan, which, though not published, have been re- 

 peatedly copied in M.S. It seems to allude to the same 

 occurrence, although the year quoted is 1511. 



" On the fourth of September, at the second hour of 

 the night, and also at the seventh, there appeared in the 

 air at Milan, a running fire, with such splendour, that 

 the day seemed to have returned, and some persons be- 

 held the appearance of a large head, which caused great 

 wonder and fear in the city. The same thing happen- 

 ed on the following night at the ninth hour. A few 

 days after, beyond the river Adda, there fell from Hea- 

 ven many stones, which, being collected at Cremasco, 

 were found to weigh 8 Ib. and even 1 1 Ib. each. Their 

 colour was similar to that of burned stones." Dr. Bos- 

 si, in commenting on this statement, endeavours to ac- 

 count for the space of time which appears to have in- 

 tervened between the meteor and the fall of stones, by 

 supposing it occupied in conveying the intelligence 

 from Crema to Milan. 



1516. In the year Wan-li, of the dynasty of Ming, 

 in the 12th moon, on the 25th day, at Chun-khing- 

 fou, in the province of Soe-tchhouan, there was nei- 

 ther wind nor clouds, when the thunder rumbled sud- 

 denly, and six globular stones fell, of which one weigh- 

 ed eight pounds, another fifteen, a third twenty-seven, 

 the smaller not more than a pound, and the smallest 

 of all only ten ounces. Ma-touan tin. May, 1520, 

 stones fell in Arragon. Diego de Sayas. April 28, 

 1540, a stone fell in the Limousin. Bonav. de Si. 

 Amable. Between 1540 and 1550. Albinus, in his 

 Chronicle of Misnra, records the fall of a large ferru- 

 ginous mass, in a forest near Nciihqf, between Leipsic 

 and Gritnma, in Saxony ; but Johnston and Alberti 

 write Neuholem, others, Naunhojf-Na, &c. A speci- 

 men of this mass is still to be seen in the imperial ca 



3 



China. 



Arragon. 

 Limousin. 



Saxony. 



