194 METEORIC STONES TN INDIA. 



Copy. 



No. 3506. 



From C. U. Aitchison, Esquire, 



Under Secretary to the Government of India, 



To the Right Honorable 



Sir Edmund Walker Head, Bart., 



Governor General North American Colonies, Canada. 



Foreign Department, l 

 Fort William, 1st July, 1861. J 

 Sir, — I am directed by His Excellency the Governor General of 

 India in Council, to forward to you a packet containing a specimen of 

 a Meteoric stone that fell at Dhurmsalla on the 14th July, 1860, and 

 to request that you will be so good as to present it to the Canadian 

 Institute. 



A printed paper giving an account of the fall of the Meteorites is 

 enclosed. 



I have, &c., 



(Signed,) C. AITCHISON, 



Under Secretary to the Government of India. 

 Fort William, 1st July, 1861. • 



Cojoy of a letter from the Deputy Commissioner, Dhurmsalla, to^ 

 R. H. Davies, Esquire, Secretary to Government Punjab, No. 927, 

 dated the 30th July, 1860. 



I have the honor to submit for the information of the Hon'ble the 

 Lieutenant Governor a full account of a Meteorite that fell at Dhurm- 

 salla on the 14th instant. 



2. In the afternoon between the hours of 2 and 2.30 p. m., the 

 Station of Dhurmsalla was startled by a terrific bursting noise, which 

 was supposed first to proceed from a succession of loud blastings, or 

 from the explosion of a mine in the upper part of the Station, others 

 imagining it to be an earthquake or very large landslip, rushed from 

 their houses in the firm belief that they must fall upon them. 



3. It soon became apparent that this was not the case. The first 

 report, which was far louder in its discharge than any volley of artil- 

 lery, was quickly followed by another and another to the number of 

 14 or 16, most of the latter reports grew gradually less and less loud. 

 These were probably but the reverberations of the former, not among' 



