90 «a. L. Smith on Meteorie Stones from Danville, Ala. 
Art. XII.— Account of a fall of Meteoric Stones near Dan- 
ville, Ala., with an analysis of the same ; by J. LAWRENCE 
Smitu, Louisville, Ky. 
ALTHOUGH the meteorite of Danville, Alabama, fell in Nov., 
1868, and an analysis has been made of it during the past 
summer, it is only recently that I obtained a complete account 
of the phenomena attending its f 
n Friday evening, Nov. 27th, 1868, about five o’clock, Mr. — 
T. F. Freeman, of Danville, (about lat. 34° 30’ and long, 87° 
W. Greenwich), on stepping from his house, was startled by a 
loud report, so much like artillery that for the moment its 
origin was attributed to the firing of a small piece of artillery 
kept in the village, but on inquiry it was ascertained that no 
firing had taken place there, but that ‘he sound was heard at 
the village, and attributed to very heavy artillery at Decatur, 
Trinity, Hillsboro, or some other point to the northward of 
Danville. During the war, artillery had been often heard in 
the valley of the Tennessee, and various speculations were in- 
dulged in as to what was meant by this cannonade at such a 
time of day and in such a direction. 
The following day, Mr. Wm. Brown, living three miles west of 
Danville, brought to the village a piece of rock which he said 
fell near him and some laborers, who were picking cotton. He 
dug it up at a depth of about 14 to 2 feet. It weighed about 
4} lbs., and had the characteristic aspects of a meteoric stone; 
but it was broken by the party obtaining it, and all but about 
half a pound, now in my possession, has been scattered and 
probably lost or thrown away. 
Several other stones fell in the same vicinity. Some negroes 
working in a cotton field on the plantation of Capt. McDaniel, 
half a mile from Danville, heard a body fall with a whizzing, 
: ing sound, and strike the ground near them with tre- 
mendous force ; but they were alarmed and did not approach 
the spot that night ; a rain fell during the night and no trace 
of it could be found the next day. Various other stones were 
heard to fall in different parts of the adjacent country. 
brothers, by the name of Wallace, were ploughing in their field, 
about 1? miles N. W. of Danville ; they distinctly heard two 
or three fainter reports, after the first loud one, and heard the 
sound of two falling bodies whizzing down, one to the right 
and the other to the left of them. 
With the above data, and the known geography of the 
country, its direction must have been N. E. and §. W., but it 
Se ne 
impossible to say from which of these quarters it came. 
Be. 
