358 J. R. Gregory — Two French Meteorites. 



merit of Loiret, but not spelt Mung as I had it with the Bois de 

 Fontaine stone, although in M. de Morogue's work it is spelt Meung 

 as in modern maps. In M. de Siemachko's Catalogue, Bois de Fontaine 

 near Beaugency is mentioned, and in M. de Morogue's work it says 

 that Dr. Pellieux resided at Baugenci : this is also probably the same 

 place. 



At page 240 of his work Mons. Bigot de Morogue says with regard 

 to the meteorite falls, " The most important which has come to my 

 knowledge is the fall of three stones on the 28rd of November, 1810, 

 in the parish of Charsonville, Canton of Meung, Department of 

 Loiret. At this time I was residing on my estate about six leagues 

 from Charsonville, and a league and a half south of Orleans. Some 

 people attributed it to the explosion of a powder magazine in the 

 direction of Tours ; but the true cause did not long remain unknown, 

 for the Baron Pieyre, Prefect of the Department of Loiret, who was 

 as zealous for the progress of science as for the success of his 

 administration, having immediately made inquiry, received a few 

 days afterwards a detailed report from the celehrated physician Dr. 

 Pellieux, residing at Baugenci, a town about two leagues from the 

 place where the stones fell. That report was very interesting, and 

 was accompanied by a fragment of one of the stones, and was read 

 at the Public Seance of the Society of Agriculture, Physic, and 

 Medicine of Orleans on November 28, 1810. It was afterwards printed 

 in No. 7 of the report of this learned society, and has been the first 

 public announcement of this event due to a remarkable but never- 

 theless common phenomenon." 



At page 245 of the same work M. Morogue says : " The report of 

 Dr. Pellieux appeared to me to have been written rather hurriedly, 

 and lacked the details which I wished to know ; but not being able 

 to go to the place where the stones fell, I wrote to M. de La Touanne, 

 my relative and friend, who was residing at this time on the beautiful 

 estate which bears his name, situate about one league from Charson- 

 ville, and begged him to obtain all the details possible on the 

 phenomenon which interested me." 



At page 247 he also says : " Monsieur de La Touanne was about 

 one league from the place of the fall, and was walking with his 

 children, when, looking by chance towards the sky in the direction 

 of Charsonville, he heard violent detonations or thunderings, which 

 seemed just over their heads. Forty persons ran from the court of the 

 castle, but they saw nothing. The same evening, however, they 

 heard that some stones had fallen at Charsonville, the fall of which 

 had doubtless caused the noise which had startled them. M. de 

 La Touanne, wishing to verify this fact, went himself the next 

 morning to the place, accompanied by a gamekeeper, a man-servant, 

 and two of his children ; arriving at the farm of Villorceau, he 

 was convinced of the truth of the report which he had heard, 

 but no one had either seen the ball of fire or the light. He was told 

 the exact places where the stones had fallen, and he went to examine 

 them himself, and there he picked up some fragments of the stone, 

 one of which he gave me, and he then went himself to visit the 

 holes from which the stones were extracted. He gathered some 



