VOL. XXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 103 



an Montanari, as may be seen in his Italian treatise about it, soon after published 

 at Bononia. He observes that at Bononia, its greatest altitude in the S. S. E. 



first observed it : in its fall it threw up the mould on every side, and buried itself 21 inches deep : 

 the stone, being raised, was found to weigh 561b. 



March the l7th, 1798. a body, burning very brightly, passed over the vicinity of ViUe Franche, 

 on the Saone, a little to the east of Lyons in France, accompanied with a hissing noise, and leaving a 

 luminous track behind it. This phenomenon exploded with a great noise, about 1200 feet from the 

 ground j and one of the splinters, still luminous, being observed to fall in a neighbouring vineyard, 

 was traced : at the spot a stone was found, about a foot diameter, which had penetrated 20 inches 

 into the ground. 



While these circumstances in Europe were daily confirming the original, but long exploded idea of 

 the vulgar, that many of the luminous meteors observed in the atmosphere, are masses of ignited 

 matter, an account of a phenomenon, of precisely the same description, was received from the East 

 Indies, vouched by authority particularly well adapted to procure general respect. Mr. Williams, 

 F. R. S. residing in Bengal, hearing of an explosion, with a descent of stones, in the province of 

 Bahar, diligently enquired into the circumstances, among the Europeans on the spot. He learned, 

 that on Dec, 19^ 1798, at 8 o'clock in the evening, a large fire ball, or luminous meteor, was seen 

 at Benares, and other parts of the country : that it was attended with a loud rumbling noise ; and 

 that, about the same time, the inhabitants of Krakhut, 14 miles from Benares, saw the light, heard 

 like a loud thunder-clap, and immediately after heard the noise of heavy bodies falling in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Next morning the mould in the fields was found to have been turned up in many spots j 

 and unusual stones of various sizes, but of the same substances, were picked out of the moist soil, 

 generally from a depth of 6 inches. As the occurrence took place in the night, after the people had 

 retired to rest, the explosion and the fall of the stones were not seen : but the watchman of arj 

 English gentleman near Krakhut, brought him a stone the next morning, which he said had fallen 

 through the top of his hut, and buried itself in the earthen floor. 



Several of the preceding accounts notice the material circumstance, of damage done to interposed 

 objects by the falling stones. In one instance, not yet mentioned, still more distinct traces were 

 left, to show that their progress was through the air; viz. during the explosion of a meteor near 

 Bourdeaux, the 20th of August 1789, a stone, about 15 inches diameter, fell through the roof of a 

 cottage, and killed a herdsman and some cattle. Part of this stone is now in the Museum of the 

 Right Hon. Charles Greville, and the rest in that of Bourdeaux. See Mr. Greville's paper in the 

 Philos. Trans, for 1803, pt. 1. 



Hence it seems quite impossible to deny very great weight to all these testimonies, and many 

 others that might be given; several of them by intelligent eye-witnesses, and others by more 

 ordinary persons indeed, but prepossessed by no theory j all concurring in their descriptions ; and 

 examined by acute and respectable persons, immediately after the phaenomena had occurred. With- 

 out offering any further remarks then, on this mass of external evidence, we shall only just notice 

 the main points which it seems to substantiate in a very satisfactory manner. It proves then, that, in 

 various parts of the world, luminous meteors have been seen moving through the air with surprising 

 rapidity, in a direction more or less oblique, accompanied with a noise, commonly like the whizzing 

 of large shot, followed by explosion, and the fall of hard, stony, or semimetallic masses, in a heated 

 state. The constant whizzing sound j the fact of stones being found, similar to each other, but 

 unlike all others in the neighbourhood, at the spots towards which the luminous body or its fragments 

 were seen to movej the scattering or ploughing up of the soil at those spots, always in proportion to 

 the size of the stones j the concussion of the neighbouring ground at the time ; and especially the 



