288 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



V. Miscellaneous Intelligence 



yf Meteoric 



r f 



M.D., Prof, of Chem. in the Med. Coll. of S. Car., and in Amherst 

 College, Mass., (communicated for this Journal.) — The present notice 

 is only for the purpose of announcing a few particulars respecting this 

 last fall of stones in the United States : fuller details of the occurrence y 

 together with a description of the meteorite, will be reserved for a fu- 

 ture occasion. The facts here presented are derived from the Rev. 

 Reuben Gaylord, of Hartford, Des Moines County, Iowa, who visited 

 the locality at my request, and has collected for me whatever specimens 

 could be procured, by far the greater part having been broken to small 

 fragments, and lost as it is feared to the purposes of science. The frag- 

 ments forwarded to me by mail, and which are referred to in the fol- 

 lowing letter, leave no doubt of the genuineness of the production de- 

 scribed. They consist of little globules of nickeliferous iron dispersed 

 through the greyish feldspathic mineral, so common in meteoric stones. 

 The fall took place in Linn County, and is well described in the follow- 

 ing letter of Mr. Gaylord. 



" Prof. C. U. Shepard : — I proceed now to give you the results of my 

 investigation of the facts in relation to the meteor which fell in our state, 

 in respect to which you wrote me some time since. Having learned 



farticulars so far that I had full reason to credit the reports in the case, 

 repaired to the spot last week, and found the facts to be as follows. 

 On the 25th day of Feb. 1847, at about ten minutes before 3 o'clock m 

 the afternoon, the attention of the people in that region was arrested 

 by a rumbling noise as of distant thunder ; then three reports were 

 heard one after another in quick succession, like the blasting of rocks 

 or the firing of a heavy cannon half of a mile distant. These were 

 succeeded by several fainter reports, like the firing of small arms in 

 platoons. Then there was a whizzing sound heard in different direc- 

 tions, as of bullets passing through the air. Two men were standing 

 together where they were at work; they followed with their eye the 

 direction of one of these sounds, and they saw about seventy rods from 

 them the snow fly. They went to the spot. A stone had fallen upon 

 the snow, had bounded twice, the first time as was supposed about eig 

 feet, and the second time about two feet. The stone weighed two poun » 

 and ten ounces. The same persons heard another stone strike as it fe i 

 supposed to be small, but they could not find it. Some timeintne 

 spring, another stone was found about one mile and a quarter west tro 

 the place where this fell. It was in two pieces lying together, weig 

 ing forty-six pounds. Another fragment, a portion of the same roc * 

 was found about half a mile from the former, which from the descnp 

 tion I had of it, I judged would weigh about fifty pounds. These wer^ 

 coated with a thin black covering. The principal ingredient id I _ 

 composition seems to be sandstone. They are full of minute bri \W^ 

 particles, and occasionally a small lump of -some metal is to be tou * 

 Enclosed in this sheet I send you three or four small ones. Some * 

 taken out as large nearly as a grain of corn. A man from whom ^ 

 tained a fragment insisted that they were silver. He had groun d u p^ 

 considerable portion of the rock to obtain this silver, and he though 



