266 Dr. Walter Flight— History of Meteorites. 



in south-east Africa considerable masses of nickel-iron have been 

 met with, 1 which were collected and worked into implements by the 

 aborigines, when they learned their value by intercourse with Euro- 

 peans. Further instances where iron is mentioned are to be found 

 in Iliad, iv. 485, and Odyssey, i. 184. 2 We know of other cases 

 where meteoric iron has been worked into implements ; among 

 which may be mentioned the iron of Arva, Szlanicza, Hungary, and 

 that composing the blades of the Esquimaux knives discovered in 

 1819 by General Sir Edward Sabine, 3 which are in the British 

 Museum Collection of Meteorites. (See also pages 156-7). 



1628, April 9th, about 6 p.m. — Chalows and Barking, near 

 Wantage, Berkshire. 4 



Mr. Webb directs attention to a letter, preserved in Wallington's 

 Historical Notices, i. 13, which was written in 1628 "by Mr. John 

 Hoskins, dwelling at Wantage, to his son-in-law, Mr. Dawson, a gun- 

 smith, dwelling in the Minories without Aldgate," relating to the fall 

 of meteorites. Describing the explosion, Hoskins says : " It began as 

 followeth : — First, as it were, one piece of ordnance went off alone. 

 Then, after that, a little distance, two more ; and then they went as 

 thick as ever I heard a volley of shot in all my life ; and after that, 



as if it were the sound of a drum Yet this was not all ; 



but, as it is reported, there fell divers stones, but two is certain in 

 our knowledge. The one fell at Chalows, half a mile off (from 

 Wantage), and the other at Barking, five miles off. Your mother 

 was at the place where one of them fell knee deep, till it came to 

 the very rock, and when it came at the hard rock it broke, and being 

 weighed, all the pieces together, they weighed six-and-twenty pound. 

 The other that was taken up at the other place (Barking) weighed 

 half a tod, 14 pound." 



1640, Whit Sunday, about Noon. — Antony, near Plymouth. 5 



Among the tracts and broadsheets which the authors have incor- 

 porated in their valuable catalogue of the writings of Cornishmen 

 is one by the Bev. Arthur Bache bearing the title, " The Voyce 

 of the Lord in the Temple ; or a most strange and wonderfull Bela- 

 tion of God's great Power, Providence, and Mercy, in sending very 

 strange sounds, fires, and a Fiery Ball into the Church of Anthony, 

 neere Plimmouth, in Cornwall, on Whit Sunday last, 1640. To the 

 scorching and astonishment of fourteen severall persons who were 

 smitten, and likewise to the great Terrour of all the other people 

 then present, being about 200," etc. This little pamphlet is chiefly 



1 0. Buchner. Die Feuermeteore. Giessen : 1859. Page 128. 



2 For the early history of iron see F. X. M. Zippe. Gold, Kupfer, Eisen. Al- 

 manack Akad. Wiss. Wien, 1856, Anhang. 135. — F. X. M. Zippe. Geschichle der 

 Metatte. Vienna, 1857. — E. Buchholz. Die Homerischen Realien. Leipzig : 1871. 

 (chapter on Mineralogy), 289-349. 



3 E. Sahine. Quart. Jour. Sc, vii. 79. 



4 T. W. "Webb. Nature, July 14th, 1870. 



6 G. C. Boase and "W. P. Courtney. Bibliotheea Comubiensis. London : Long- 

 mans, 1874. 



