AEROLITES. 1 33 



which was sown with wheat, and it did it no harm, except that it made a hole there : and 

 then they conveyed it from that spot ; and many pieces were broken from it ; which the 

 landvogt forbade. They, therefore, caused it to be placed in the church, with the inten- 

 tion of suspending it as a miracle : and there came here many people to see this stone. 

 So there were remarkable conversations about this stone : but the learned said that they 

 knew not what it was ; for it was beyond the ordinary course of nature that such a large 

 stone should smite the earth from the height of the air ; but that it was really a miracle 

 of God ; for, before that time, never anything was heard like it, nor seen, nor described. 

 When they found that stone, it had entered into the earth to the depth of a man's stature, 

 which everybody explained to be the will of God that it should be found ; and the noise 

 of it was heard at Lucerne, at Vitting, and in many other places, so loud that it was 

 believed that houses had been overturned : and as the King Maximilian was here the 

 Monday after St. Catharine's day of the same year, his royal Excellency ordered the stone 

 i 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 anybody to take anything from it. His 

 Excellency, however, took two pieces of it ; of which he kept one, and sent the other to 

 i the Duke Sigismund of Austria : and they spoke a great deal about this stone, which they 

 suspended in the choir, where it still is ; and a great many people came to see it." Con- 

 temporary writers confirm the substance of this narration, and the evidence of the fact 

 exists ; the aerolite is precisely identical in its chemical composition with that of other 

 meteoric stones. It remained for three centuries suspended in the church, was carried off 

 to Colmar during the French revolution ; but has since been restored to its former site, 

 and Ensisheim rejoices in the possession of the relic. A piece broken from it is in the 

 museum of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. 



The celebrated Gassendi was a'n eye-witness of a similar event. In the year 1627, on 

 the 27th of November, the sky being quite clear, he saw a burning stone fall in the 

 neighbourhood of Nice, and examined the mass. AVhile in the air it'appeared to be about 

 four feet in diameter, was surrounded by a luminous circle of colours like a rainbow, and 

 its fall was accompanied by a noise like the discharge of artillery. Upon inspecting the 

 substance, he found it weighed 591bs., was extremely hard, of a dull metallic colour, and 

 of a specific gravity considerably greater than that of common marble. Having only this 

 solitary instance of such an occurrence, Gassendi concluded that the mass came from 

 some of the mountains of Provence, which had been in a transient state of volcanic 

 activity. Instances of the same phenomenon occurred in the years 1672, 1756, and 1768; 

 but the facts were generally doubted by naturalists, and considered as electrical appear- 

 ances magnified by popular ignorance and timidity. A remarkable example took place in 

 France in the year 1790. Between nine and ten o'clock at night, on the 24th of July, a 

 luminous ball was seen traversing the atmosphere with great rapidity, and leaving behind 

 it a train of light ; a loud explosion was then heard, accompanied with sparks which flew 

 off in all directions ; this was followed by a shower of stones over a considerable extent of 

 ground, at various distances from each other, and of different sizes. A proces verbal was 

 drawn up, attesting the circumstance, signed by the magistrates of the municipality, and 

 by several hundreds of persons inhabiting the district. This curious document is literally 

 as follows : " In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety, and the thirtieth day 

 of the month of August, we, the Lieut. Jean Duby. mayor, aud Louis Massillon, procu- 

 rator of the commune of the municipality of La Grange-de-Juillac, and Jean Darmite, 

 resident in the parish of La Grange-de-Juillac, certify in truth and verity, that on 

 Saturday, the 24th of July last, between nine and ten o'clock, there passed a great fire, 

 and after it we heard in the air a very loud and extraordinary noise ; and about two 



