226 J. A. Birds — On the Isle of Man, 



down towards 10° E. of the Pleiades in Taurus. A sound as of an 

 explosion was heard three seconds after its disappearance. 



1872. November 13th. 2 a.m. " Sevenstones " Light-ship, Scilly 



Islands. 1 



A letter, addressed by the Secretary of the Corporation of the Trinity 

 House to the President of the Boyal Society, states that at the above 

 hour a meteor burst over the "Sevenstones" light- vessel, moored about 

 9-| miles E. by N. of the Scilly Islands. The watch were struck sense- 

 less for a short period, and on recovery they observed " balls of fire 

 falling in the water like splendid fireworks," while the deck was 

 covered with cinders, " which crushed under the sailors' feet as they 

 walked." The writer states that the "cinders " were, there is reason 

 to fear, all washed off the decks by the rain and sea before daylight. 

 Miss Carne, of Penzance, and Mr. Tailing, of Lostwithiel, to whom 

 I applied for information, did not succeed in obtaining any further 

 details respecting this remarkable occurrence. 



1872. November 30th. 2-8 p.m.— Slough, England. 2 



The descent of this ' meteor ' was witnessed by Sir J. C. Cowell, 

 who states that it fell one mile east of Slough, and about 150 yards 

 south of the Great Western Kail way. He writes that the phenomenon 

 occurred during a short and sharp thunderstorm which passed over 

 North Hants and East Berks. It is a question whether this was not 

 a form of ball-lightning. " The explosion was similar to that of a 

 heavy gun when fired." A sketch accompanying the notice repre- 

 sents the fire-ball striking a ploughed field, between the observer 

 and some trees. It is not stated whether any search was made at 

 the time for a meteorite. 



(To be continued in our next Number.) 



VI. — Postscript to a Paper on the Post-Pliocene Formations 



op the- Isle op Man. 3 



By J. A. Birds, B.A. 



WHEN I sent the above paper to the Geological Magazine, I 

 was not aware that a Sketch of the Geology of the Isle of 

 Man, by Mr. John Home, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of Scot- 

 land, had been published in the Transactions of the Edinburgh 

 Geological Society. 4 



A notice 5 of Mr. Home's sketch afterwards appeared in the 

 December Number of the Geological Magazine; and the author 

 has since kindly sent me a copy of his paper. 



I am happy to find that I am in agreement with Mr. Home as to 

 there being two Boulder-clays, with interglacial beds, represented in 

 the Isle of Man; and, further, that there are abundant memorials 

 left of the period of the great submergence. 



Mr. Home's account, too, of the striation of the rocks, and the 



1 B. Allen Proc. Royal Soc., xxi. 122. 



2 Sir J. C. Cowell. Nature, 26th December, 1872. 



3 See the Geol. Mag., Dec. II. Vol. II. Feb. 1875, p. 80. 

 * Trans. Edinburgh Geol. Soc, 1874, vol. ii. part 3. 



5 Geol. Mag., Dec. II. Vol. I. Dec. 1874, p. 560. 



