Intelligence and Miscellanies. 1 95 



als led to the following enquiry. The experiments of Black 

 and others have shewn, that when water is brought to the 

 freezing point, a quantity of caloric sufficient to carry the 

 thermometer through many degrees, may be imbibed or giv- 

 en off, without affecting the thermometer or the sense of feel- 

 ing. May hot the state of ice-water be such, that though it 

 seems to be but little colder than spring water, it will take 

 much more caloric from the stomach? Would not this en^ 

 quiry afford ample materials for a medical graduates' disser- 

 tation ? A, Eaton. 



4. Virginia Aerolite. 



TO THE EDITOR. 

 Bremo, Fluvanna County, Va,, AugUst 4th, 1828. 

 Sir — The fact that stones have fallen from the atmos- 

 phere, is now universally admitted by men of science, but 

 as there may still be some persons not acquainted with the 

 evidence, who may entertain doubts on the subject, it may 

 not be amiss to make known the facts connected with an 

 instance of the sort that occured in Chesterfield county in 

 this state about seven miles south west of Richmond, on the 

 fourth of June last — this case is as well attested as any of 

 the kind I ever recollect to have heard of. 



Being in Richmond at the time, and hearing of the fall, 

 I made some enquiry and obtained a piece of the stone, 

 about the size of a pigeon's Qg^g. This resembled so much 

 the only specimen of a meteoric stone I had ever seen, that 

 my anxiety to see the whole stone and to learn the facts re- 

 lating to its fall, was increased. It was very much hke a 

 fragment in your cabinet which was part of a stone that 

 fell in Connecticut many years ago,* an account of which 

 is published in the American edition of Rees' Cyclope- 

 dia — after some enquiry I obtained the greater part of 

 the stone weighing three pounds, three ounces, avoirdu- 

 pois. Most of the exterior is of a dark grey color ; about 

 one third is covered with a black crust. The fracture is 

 granular and of a light grey, interspersed with white me- 

 tallic points, which yield easily to the knife. For several 

 days after the stone was taken from the earth it retained a 

 strong scent of sulphur. The exterior exhibited several cav- 



* Dec. 1807 — A great event of the kind — several hundred pounds of stone 

 fell — during the passage of the fire ball. — A specimen in the Cabinet of Yale 

 College, weighs 36 lbs.— Editor, 



