AEROLITES. 135 



a part of Normandy, including Caen, Falaise, Alencon, and a large number of villages, a 

 fiery globe of great brilliancy moving in the atmosphere with great rapidity. Some 

 moments after, there was heard at L'Aigle and in the environs to the extent of more than 

 thirty leagues in every direction, a violent explosion, which lasted five or six minutes. At 

 first there were three or four reports like those of a cannon, followed by a kind of dis- 

 charge which resembled the firing of musketry ; after which there was heard a rumbling 

 like the beating of a drum. The air was calm and the sky serene, except a few clouds, 

 such as are frequently observed. The noise proceeded from a small cloud which had a 

 rectangular form, and appe'ared motionless all the time that the phenomenon lasted. The 

 vapour of which it was composed was projected in all directions at the successive 

 explosions. The cloud seemed about half a league to the north-east of the town of L'Aigle, 

 and must have been at a great elevation in the atmosphere, for the inhabitants of two 

 hamlets, a league distant from each other, saw it at the same time above their heads. 

 In the whole canton over which it hovered a hissing noise like that of a stone discharged 

 from a sling was heard : and a multitude of mineral masses were seen to fall to the 

 ground. The largest that fell weighed 17^ pounds ; and the gross number amounted to 

 nearly three thousand. By the direction of the Academy of Sciences, all the circum- 

 stances of this event were minutely examined by a commission of inquiry with the 

 celebrated M. Biot at its head. They were found in harmony with the preceding relation, 

 and reported to the French minister of the interior. Upon analysing the stones they 

 were found identical with those of Benares. 



The following are the principal facts with reference to the aerolites, upon which general 

 dependence may be placed. Immediately after their descent they are always intensely hot. 

 They are covered with a fused black incrustation consisting chiefly of oxide of iron ; and 

 what is most remarkable, their chemical analysis develops the same substances in nearly 

 the same proportions, though one may have reached the earth in India and another in 

 England. Their specific gravities are about the same ; considering 1000 as the propor- 

 tionate number for the specific gravity of water, that of some of the aerolites has been 

 found to be 



Ennesheim stone - - 3233 



Benares - 3352 



Sienna - 3418 



Gassendi's ... 3456 



Yorkshire - - 3508 

 Bachalay's - - 3535 

 Bohemia - - 4281 



The greater specific gravity of the Bohemian stone arose from its containing a 

 greater proportion of iron. An analysis of one of the stones that fell at L'Aigle gives 



Silica - - 46 per cent. 



Magnesia - - - 10 

 Iron - - - 45 



Nickel < 2 



Sulphur - - 5 



Zinc - 1 



Iron is found in all these bodies, and in a considerable quantity, with the rare metal 

 nickel. It is a singular fact, that though a chemical examination of their composition 

 has not discovered any substance with which we Were not previously acquainted, yet no 

 other bodies have yet been found, native to the earth, which contain the same ingredients 

 combined. Neither products of the volcanoes, whether extinct or In action, nor the 

 stratified or unstratified rocks, have exhibited a sample of that combination of metallic 

 and earthy substances which the meteoric stones present; During the era that science 

 has admitted their path to the earth as a physical tilith, scarcely amounting to half a 

 century, few years have elapsed without a known instance of descent occurring in some 

 region of the globe. To Izarn's list, previously given, upwards of seventy cases might be 

 added, which have transpired during the last forty years. A report relating to one of the 



