J. R. Gregory — Two French Meteorites. 357 



can hardly escape a conclusion favourable to the notion of a certain 

 amount of unconformity between the two formations, along the 

 north and south flanks of the area. The occurrence of sharks' teeth, 

 septaria, and flint pebbles in the London Clay at Aldershot, where 

 I have seen them dug out of the stiff blue London Clay only a few 

 yards below the Bagshot Sands of that section, is also in favour of 

 the assignment of the less than 200 feet of London Clay of that 

 district to the lower portions of that formation. In a future paper 

 I shall show that the unconformity inferred from the above evidence 

 can be established from a wider induction. 



VI. — The Bois de Fontaine Meteorite, and its Probable 



Identity with that of Charsonville of 1810. 



By James E. Gregory. 



A FEW years since I received from a correspondent in Paris 

 several fragments of a meteorite, which my informant stated 

 fell at Bois de Fontaine on the estate of the Marquis de la Touane, 

 near Mung, in the department of Loire t, France, in 1825, but no 

 precise date was given. It was said to be unknown and undescribed. 

 My informant also stated that it was presented to the physician of 

 the Marquis de la Touane, from whom he, my informant, received it 

 in exchange. Of the specimens that I received, two had some of the 

 original crust on them, one a small fragment only, and the other a 

 specimen of 254 grammes, but with only a small amount of crust. I 

 had also five or six other specimens without the crust. 



On recently referring to the very detailed accounts of some of the 

 falls of meteorites in the early part of this century in the " Memoire 

 Historique et Physique sur les Chutes de Pierres," by M. P. M. S. 

 Bigot de Morogue, published at Orleans in 1812, I find a very 

 precise description of the fall at Charsonville, as observed by several 

 eye-witnesses ; but what excited my curiosity were the same names 

 of persons and of places mentioned in connection with the Charson- 

 ville fall, as with that of the Bois de Fontaine. As the data of the so- 

 called Bois de Fontaine was very meagre, and the year of its supposed 

 fall so widely different, I thought that possibly some error had arisen 

 as regards date. I afterwards compared my specimens of the 

 Charsonville, which I have had in my possession some years, in fact 

 long before the Bois de Fontaine was heard of. The British Museum 

 had indeed a specimen from me of the Charsonville stone at the same 

 time I had mine. I found on careful examination with the Bois de 

 Fontaine that they were identical in texture as well as in colour 

 when fresh broken. To be still more certain, Mr. Thomas Davies, of 

 the British Museum, was obliging enough to allow me to compare 

 my Charsonville specimen with the Museum one, and I also compared 

 a specimen of the Bois de Fontaine with the Charsonville at the same 

 time. 



It will be seen that it is possible that the physician named by my 

 informant in connection with the Bois de Fontaine stone may be a 

 descendant of the Dr. Pellieux named in the account of the Charson 

 ville fall in 1810 ; also that I find Meung in the map of the depart- 



