Miscellanies. 199 



3. African Meteorite of Cold BoJckeveld. — A notice of this me- 

 teorite was given in this Journal, Vol. xxxvii, p. 190. By the kind- 

 ness of the Rev. G. Champion, late missionary in South Africa, we 

 have recently received the South African Commercial Advertiser of 

 Dec. 11, and another of Nov. 27, (of themselves interesting curiosi- 

 ties,) from which we extract the following particulars. 



It is stated in the paper of Nov. 27, that the event occurred on the 

 morning of Oct. 12, 1838. There was a cloudless sky without wind, 

 when, say the Hottentots Kieviet and Rattray, both under oath be- 

 fore a magistrate, about 9 o'clock we heard a strange noise in the air, 

 resembling the loudest thunder we had ever heard; and on looking 

 up we perceived a stream passing over our head, issuing a noise 

 which petrified us with terror : a burst took place close to the wag- 

 gon,* when something fell and a smoke arose from the grass. My 

 master sent me to look what it was that had fallen ; when I found a 

 stone quite warm, so much so that I could not hold it in my hands. 

 It might have been then of the weight of seven or eight pounds. In 

 the paper of Dec. 11th, is a detailed statement signed Thos. Maclear, 

 at the Royal Observatory, Dec. 7, 1839, a principal object of which is 

 to correct the date of the fall of the stones, making it the 13th instead 

 of the 12th of October, 1838. From this statement we select the 

 following particulars. 



The Cold Bokkeveld is an irregular valley or bason, bounded by 

 high rugged mountains, as is also the case with the basons of Wor- 

 cester and Tullogh. The report was heard fifty miles from the Bok- 

 keveld : of the two reports heard at Worcester, it is probable that 

 the second was an echo from the mountains,! as only one report was 

 heard in the Bokkeveld. To Judge Menzies and Mr. George Thomp- 

 son, who were travelling ninety miles east of Cold Bokkeveld, the 

 meteor appeared to explode nearly over their heads — a decisive proof 

 that it was much elevated at the time. Mr. Maclear visited the Bok- 

 keveld on purpose to examine the eye-witnesses in person. Mr. 

 Thompson states that at about 9 o'clock, A. M. October 13, the me- 

 teor appeared to approach from the west with great velocity and pre- 

 cisely similar to a large congreve rocket ; it expanded (exploded ?) 

 nearly over head, apparently not more than three hundred to four 

 hundred feet high, dispersing in large globes, the size of forty two 



* With which they were getting wood. 



t A very fine series of echoes is heard from the door of the Mountain House 

 among the White Mountains of New Hampshire, when at the hour of retiring for 

 the repose of night a horn is vigorously sounded or a piece of artillery discharged ; 

 the reverberations are very distinct, and prolonged until they die away insensibly 

 in the distance. 



