Dr. Walter Flight — History of Meteorites. 71 



the descent of which has been witnessed. Among these very few is 

 the iron of Jullunder (Jalandher), Lahore, the history of which has 

 quite recently been studied by H. Blochmann. 1 According to the 

 Iqbalnamah i Jahangrri, a dreadful explosion was heard in a village 

 near Jullunder on the morning of the 10th April, 1621 (old style), 2 

 and " a lightning-like lustre shot along the heaven and descended to the 

 earth, and disappeared." Muhammad Sa'id, the Collector of Jullunder, 

 rode to the spot, and ordered the burnt ground where the meteor 

 struck to be dug. The deeper his men dug the hotter and crisper 

 the ground became " till they alighted on a lump of iron, which was 

 so hot that it seemed to have come that very moment out of the 

 oven. His Majesty (Jahangir) sent for Ustad Daud, who was well- 

 known in those days for the excellent sword-blades that he made, 

 and ordered him to make the lump into a sword, a dagger, and a 

 knife ; but the iron would not stand the hammer, and crumbled to 

 pieces." 3 He mixed the meteoric iron (cihan i barg, lightning iron) 

 with common iron, and forged the weapons. This meteorite is calcu- 

 lated to have weighed 5*27 lbs. Troy. 



1870, June 17th, 2 p.m. — Ibbenbiihren, Westphalia. 4 



This stone was seen to fall. It is stated that a flash of light was 

 succeeded in about one minute by a noise as of thunder, which 

 attracted the attention of many persons within a radias of some three 

 miles, and three minutes later the stone was seen to fall by a peasant 

 distant some hundred paces. It entered the ground to the depth of 

 0*7 metre in a well-trodden footpath ; a fragment (30 grammes) was 

 afterwards found 300 to 400 paces from the spot. The meteorite, 

 which weighs 2 , 034 kilog. and is almost perfect, has the form of a 

 flattened spheroid ; and the black crust, which is somewhat less than 

 0-1 mm. thick, bears on its surface a great number of very minute 

 'ridges of fusion' that are less marked than in the aerolites of Stannern 

 and Pultusk. On the posterior portion of the stone the fused matter 

 has streamed along the surface. The stone, moreover, exhibits 

 curious depressions, resembling the marks which are made by 

 fingers on a plastic mass. 



The body of the stone is of a remarkably light colour, and consists 

 of a greyish-white granular mass, through which are very unequally 

 distributed numerous large and small grains of a light yellowish- 

 green mineral. Some attain a size of 3 mm., and all that were 

 examined were so deficient in crystal -faces, and even in cleavage- 

 planes, that an accurate determination of their form could not be 

 made ; judging from the cleavage, however, this mineral appears to 



under the word ' India ' not only the British possessions, but the foreigu settlements 

 in the Indian Archipelago. 



1 H. Blochmann, Proc.Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1869, 167. 



2 This fall, in Mr. Greg's Catalogue, bears the date April 17th, 1620. 



3 Compare with Mallet's experiments in forging the meteoric iron of Augusta 

 County. (See page 28). 



4 G. Vom Rath. Motiatsber. Ah. Wiss. Berlin, 1872, 27 ; Fogg. Ann., cxlvi. 474. 



