Miscellanies. 401 



and if the observations are accurate, the errors of construction cannot 

 possibly amount to a mile on any one line. 



It may be remarked that the velocity of this meteor is so great, that 

 were it a body revolving about the sun, its orbit must be hyperbolic. — 

 T. H. in the Boston Courier. 



7. Terrestrial origin of the alleged Meteoric rain in Hungary.— \a. 

 the Allgemeine Zeitung, appeared last year a long account of a shower 

 of vast numbers of small meteoric stones, which was asserted to have 

 occurred at Iwan in Hungary, on the night of the 10th of August, 1841. 

 Whether the story is wholly false or not, we are not informed ; but an 

 examination of the alleged meteorites, (the results of which appear in 

 Foggendorffs Annalen, 1841, No. 11,) shows that the stones are plain- 

 ly of terrestrial origin. At the request of a society of naturalists in 

 Vienna, Count Paul Szechenyi procured from his estate of Iwan, where 

 this rain is said to have fallen, a mass of earth of a cubic foot in di- 

 mensions, dug from a field, which had been three years in clover. 

 This earth, which consisted of a very hard adhesive clay, was subject- 

 ed to an examination, which resulted in the conviction, that the suppo- 

 sed meteoric hail was only small grains of pisiform iron ore, (bog ore 

 or Limonite,) which were found to be distributed throughout the mass, 

 to a depth of at least twelve inches from the surface, whereas the me- 

 teoric stones in question were said to have penetrated the soil only to 

 the depth of half an inch. 



8. Meteorology. — To the following important notice we invite the 

 particular attention of our readers, with the hope that it will command 

 due attention. Prof. Espy has issued a " circular," which we have 

 received, requesting all persons who keep or are disposed to keep 

 journals of the weather in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, and 

 the West Indies, to signify to him at Washington City, their willing- 

 ness to furnish him with a copy of them monthly, and if they request 

 it, blank forms will be sent them, with instructions how to observe. Mr. 

 Espy is desirous of obtaining a journal of the weather for the evening 

 and night of the 3d of September, 1821, in the N. W. corner of Con- 

 necticut, or S. W. corner of Massachusetts. 



Direct — Surgeon General's Office, care of J. P. Espy, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



9. Solar Eclipse of July 8th, 1842. — We have been indulged with 

 the perusal of a private letter from that excellent astronomer, Francis 

 Baily, Esq., giving an account of this superb phenomenon as witnessed 

 by himself at Pavia in Italy, over which town the line of central dark- 



Vol. XLiii, No. 2.— July-Sept. 1842. 51 



