aie REPORT—1874., 
penetrate furthest are heard first like one or several cannon-shots, probably 
indicating if there is only one or if there are more than one such large 
aérolites included in the swarm. The smaller more distant detonations are 
heard afterwards following the principal shots as a confused rattling sound, 
generally compared to musketry or to the rattling and rolling sound of a near 
"peal of thunder. Such is shown both by telescopic examinations and naked- 
eye observations of the structure of many large fireballs, as well as by the 
frequent occurrence of such showers of stones as those of Pultusk, Stannern, 
or L’Aigle, where the largest stones are found leading the fall and the whole 
area scattered over lies almost vertically below the point of explosion or dis- 
appearance of the meteor. Such was apparently the condition at Pultusk ; 
and the height of 204 English statute miles above the earth’s surface at 
which the present meteor disappeared, resembling exactly that of the point 
of disappearance of the Pultusk fireball, coupled with the fact that few or 
no distinct explosions but, as generally described, a prolonged rattling sound 
as of many small reports, lasting for nearly a minute, was produced by the 
bursting of this meteor, Dr. Galle was prepared to hear in his inquiries on 
the spot of some small aérolitic fragments having been discovered near the 
place which he ascertained to be under the meteor’s point of disappearance ; 
but the ground was thickly clothed with grass and forests ; the hour of the 
evening when the meteor appeared was already late, and the chance of their 
observation or recovery, if any fell, was on these accounts extremely small*. 
It is remarkable that perfectly authentic statements were received of the 
deposition, soon after, or about the time of, the meteor’s explosion over Zittau 
and its neighbourhood, of a mass of melted and burning sulphur the size of a 
man’s fist, on the roadway of a village, Proschwitz, about 4 miles south of 
Reichenberg, where the meteor exploded nearly in the zenith. It was stamped 
out by a crowd of the villagers, who could give no other explanation of its 
appearance on the spot than that it had proceeded from the meteor ; on exa- 
mination at Breslau some remnants of the substance proved to be pure 
sulphur. With regard to the calculated course, the meteor must, however, 
have passed quite 12 or 14 miles south-westwards from the place where this 
event is said to have occurred; and its questionable connexion with the 
fireball is accordingly rendered very doubtful from the great distance of the 
locality from immediately below the meteor’s course. In Chladni’s work on 
Fiery Meteors and Stonefalls, only one similar instance is recorded, from 
ancient chronicles, where burning sulphur fell at Magdeburg, of the size of a 
man’s fist, on the castle-roof at Loburg, 18 miles from Magdeburg, in June of 
the year 1642. The fact of this large fireball having deposited any stony or 
other aérolitic matter cannot therefore yet be regarded as decidedly esta- 
blished. 
The most remarkable circumstance connected with this meteor’s real 
course, both as calculated by Prof. vy. Niessl and by Dr. Galle, is that the 
speed of its motion, combined with the calculated direction of its flight, 
belong to an orbit round the sun which was decidedly hyperbolic. The 
principal alteration of the real course found by Prof. y. Niessl, that was 
introduced by the observations in Silesia, West Prussia, and Austria collected 
by Dr. Galle, depended upon an excellent description of the meteor’s first 
appearance at Rybnik and Ratibor, two towns in Upper Silesia, as well as on 
equally certain positions obtained at the observatory and in the town of 
* Some accounts of a brownish dust having been seen falling, and of a deposit of fine 
yellow sand having been collected in its descent from the air, are contained in the original 
descriptions; but the evidence of these occurrences appears to have been too slight and 
indistinct to allow them to be certainly connected with the meteor, 
