118 



METEORITE. 



Meteorite. One of these sabres I named Kalai, or the cutler; and 

 S ~""V~ 1 "'' the other Burk-serisht, or l/ie lightning-no lured. 



" A poet* composed and presented to me, on this 

 occasion, the following tetrastich. 



" This earth has attained order and regularity through 

 the Emperor Jehangire: 



" In his time fell raw iron from lightning : 

 " That iron was, by his world-subduing authority, 

 " Converted into a dagger, a knife, and two sabres.'' 

 Ijiit, what is more to our purpose, the late Hon. 

 Charles Greville, at whose request Colonel Kirkpatrick 

 translated the foregoing quotation, has remarked, that 

 the Emperor Jehangire was not a prince on whom his 

 courtiers would idly venture to impose ; and that there 

 can be little probability that an Aumil of a district 

 should invent such a story, or be able to produce a 

 substance like iron, but which, on trial, should differ 

 from manufactured iron. 



Devon- January 1 0, 1 622, a stone fell in Devonshire. RumpJi. 



shire. April 9, 1628, stones fell near Hatford, in Berkshire. 

 Hati'ord. Gent. Mag. December 5, 1631. The following letter 

 from Captain William Badily, is inserted in the first 

 volume of the Philosophical Transactions. " The 6th 

 of December, 1631, being in the Gulf of Volo, riding 

 at anchor, about ten of the clock that night, it began 

 to rain sand or ashes, and continued till two of the 

 dock next morning. It was about two inches thick on 

 the deck, so that we cast it overboard with shovels, as 

 we did snow the day before : the quantity of a bushel 

 we brought home, and presented to several friends-)-, 

 especially to the Masters of Trinity House. There 

 was in our company, Captain John Wilds, Commander 

 of the Dragon, and Captain Anthony Watts, Com- 

 mander of the Elizabeth and Dorcas. There was no 

 wind stirring when these ashes fell ; it did not fall on- 

 ly in the places where we were, but likewise in other 

 parts, as ships were coming from St. John d'Acre to 

 oxir port : they being at that time a hundred leagues 

 from us. We compared the ashes together, and found 

 them both one." 



Charollois. October 27, 1634, stones fell in the Charollois. Mo- 

 rinus June 21, 1635. Francesco Carli, a learned, 

 Vago. and highly respectable gentleman of Verona, reports 

 the fall of a large stone at five o'clock in the evening. 

 It was preceded by a great mass of flame, which tra- 

 versed the Lago dl Garda with such velocity, that the 

 eye could scarcely follow its motions, illuminated all 

 the country in the path of its passage, shaking the 

 houses with its loud explosion, and alighting on the 

 grounds of the Benedictine monks, under the town of 

 Vago, about six Italian miles from Verona. Next 

 morning, there was found on the spot on which it 

 had alighted, a stone, invested with a black and chan- 

 nelled crust, which had penetrated about a yard into 

 the soil, and was broken into several pieces, the larg- 

 est of which was of a cubical form, of nearly a yard 

 and a half on every side, of the colour of ashes, giv- 

 ing out an offensive odour of sulphur, and having mi- 

 nute particles of iron disseminated through its sub- 

 stance. 



Calce. Saturday, July 7, 1635. During a violent storm, a 



stone, weighing about 1 1 oz. fell at Calce, in the Vi- 

 centine territory. Valisnieri March 6, 1636. Dur- 

 ing a perfectly serene sky, a large stone fell, with a 

 loud crash, between Sagan and the village of Dubrow, 



in Silesia. It was covered with a crust, had, internal. 

 ly, the appearance of n metallic slag, and seemed as if 

 it had been acted on by fire. Lucas, Seschiche's Cliron. 

 Cluver. Gcor. 1638. Red rain at Tournay. Novem- Tourney, 

 ber 29, 16.39, (not 1629, nor 1627, as mis- quoted by 

 some writers.) In the third Section of the Second 

 Book of his Physics, the celebrated Gassendi, whose 

 accuracy and veracity will not be readily impeached, 

 states, that, at ten o'clock in the morning, a stony 

 mass, regarded as a thunder-stone, was seen by three 

 creditable witnesses, to fall on Mount Vaision, one of Mount 

 the Maritime Alps, when the ground was covered Vaision. 

 with snow, and the sky perfectly serene. The spot is 

 indicated as lying between the small towns of Guil 

 laumes and Perne, in Provence. Many, for a great 

 way round, heard the explosion, but only three indi- 

 viduals saw the fire-ball. The noise which preceded 

 it, they compared to the repeated discharge of artil- 

 lery ; but two of the 'concussions were particularly 

 tremendous ; and the reverberation of the last was im- 

 mediately followed by a rumbling noise, like the beat- 

 ing of four or five drums, when a flaming circle, of 

 varietl hues, and apparently of four feet in diameter, 

 passed before the eyes of the spectators, accompanied 

 with a loud hissing, like that of fire-works, and with 

 a strong sulphureous odour. So far as could be con- 

 jectured, it had rushed on their view when at the dis- 

 tance of only a hundred paces from their persons ; and 

 they saw it strike the ground, like a black-bird with 

 white spots, and smoke issue from the place where it 

 fell, which was not beyond thirty paces from their own 

 station. The noise which ensued on its striking the 

 ground, was compared to the firing of musketry. The 

 inhabitants of both towns flocked to the smoking 

 scene, and found a hollow of nearly one foot wide, 

 and three in depth, the snow being melted for five feet 

 round, and the earth and small stones obviously cal- 

 cined. In the bottom of the hollow was found the 

 stone, about the size of a calf's head, but rounder, and 

 more approaching, in form, to that of a man. It was 

 of a dark metallic colour, extremely hard, and weigh- 

 ed 54 Proven$al, or 38 Parisian pounds, its specific 

 gravity being to that of common marble, as 14 to 11. 



Mons. Izarn not only mis-dates the year and day of 

 this appearance, but asserts thatGassendi himself saw it ; 

 whereasthatphilosopherexpressly says,zpse cum abessem. 



August 4, 1642, a stone, weighing 4 Ib. fell between Suffolk. 

 Woodbridge and Aldborough, in Suffolk. Gent. M</g. 

 1643, or 1644. Stones fell in the sea. Wurfhain. Jan. Set " 

 23 or 24, 1645. Red rain fell at Bois-le-Duc. Oct. 6, Bois-le- 

 1 646. Red rain at Brussels. Kronland, Wendelinus. nuc - 

 Feb. 18, 1647. A stone fell near Zwickau. Schmid. Brussels. 

 August, 1647. Stones fell in the bailliage of Stolzenau, 

 in Westphalia. Glib. An. Between 1647 and 1654, a 

 stone fell into the sea. Willmann, Malle-Brun.A\i- 

 gust 6, 1650. We find it mentioned in Senguerd's Phy- '' 

 sical Exercitations,thata stone fell at Dordrecht. March 

 30, 1654. Thomas Bartholinus adverts to a shower ef Oof * lt| **j 

 stones, in the island of Funen, in Denmark. A large Funen - 

 stone fell at Warsaw. Pet. Borellus. A small stone fell Warsaw. 

 at Milan, and killed a Franciscan monk. Museum Sep- Milan. 

 talianum. June 19, or 21, 1668. A great fall of stones 

 near Verona. Valisnieri, Monlenari, and Carli. From Verona. 

 a book which was printed at Paris, in 1 672, and which 

 has now become very scarce, entitled, Conversations 



* " The poet is named in the original ; but the name is not perfectly legible." 



f- Some of these ashes were produced by Mr. John Evelyn, before the Royal Society. 



