.332 Aerolite of MarylancL 



February 10th, 1825, The sky was rather hazy, and the 

 wind south-west. At about noon the people of the towny 

 and of the adjacent country were alarmed by an ex- 

 plosion of some body in the air, which was succeeded by a 

 loud whizzing noise, like that of air rushing through a small 

 aperture, passing rapidly in the course from north-west to 

 south-east, nearly parallel with the river Potomac. Shortly 

 after, a spot of ground on the plantation of Capt. Wm. D. 

 Harrison, surveyor of this port, was found to have been 

 recently broken, and on examination a rough stone of an 

 oblong shape, weighing sixteen pounds and seven ounces, 

 was found about 18 inches under the surface. The stone 

 when taken from the ground, about half an hour after it is 

 supposed to have fallen, was sensibly warm, and had a strong 

 sulphureous smell. It has a hard vitreous surface, and when 

 broken appears composed of an earthy or siliceous matrix of 

 a light slate colour, containing numerous globules of various 

 sizes, very hard and of a brown colour, together with small 

 portions of brownish yellow pyrites, which become dark 

 coloured on being reduced to powder. 1 have procured for 

 you a fragment* of the stone weighing four pounds and, ten 

 ounces^ which was all 1 could obtain. Various notions were 

 entertained by the people in the neighbourhood on finding 

 the stone. Some supposed it propelled from a quarry or 

 10 miles distant on the opposite side of the river; while 

 others thought it thrown by a mortar from a packet lying a6 

 anchor in the river, and even proposed manning boats to take 

 vengeance on the captain and crew of the vessel. 



I have conversed with many persons living over an extent 

 of perhaps tifty miles square — some heard the explosion, 

 \vhile others heard only the subsequent whizzing noise in the 

 air. AH agree in stating that the noise appeared directly 

 over their heads. One gentleman, living about 25 miles from 

 the place where the stone fell, says that it caused his whole 

 plantation to shake, which many supposed to be the effect of 

 an earthquake. I cannot learn that any fireball or any light 

 was seen in the heavens — all are confident that there was but 

 one report ; and no peculiar smell in the air was noticed. 



I herewith transmit the statement of Ofpt. Harrison, the 

 gentleman on whose plantation the stone fell. 



" This specimen is not yet received.' — Ed. 



