C. U. Shepard— Meteoric Stone, of Rochester, Indiana. 207 



mixing of the two in proper proportions enhances their separate 

 value and makes a more perfect nutriment, and under New 

 England circumstances doubtless an economical cattle food. 

 The digestibility of cellulose in the alimentary apparatus of 

 herbivorous animals has not only been amply established by 

 numerous feeding trials in the agricultural experiment stations 

 of Germany and Austria, but the relative digestibility of the 

 cellulose and other food-elements of various kinds of cattle 

 food has been the subject of repeated experiments. The 

 method of these investigations consists in determining by 

 chemical analysis the amount of cellulose, etc., contained in 

 the ingested food and the amount that passes off in the solid 

 excreta. The difference is the quantity digested. It has 

 been found as the average of some 45 experiments on oxen, 

 cows, goats and sheep, that 62 per cent of the cellulose of 

 meadow hay is dissolved in the digestion of these animals and 

 serves as food, while as the average of 18 trials but 46| per 

 cent of the cellulose of red-clover hay is digested. In a 

 single trial Moser found that 72 per cent of the cellulose of 

 maize fodder was digested by sheep. One result is not con- 

 clusive as to the comparative digestibility of maize fodder, 

 because this quality is influenced by the maturing of the 

 plant, and bv the individuality of the animal, as well as by 

 the proportion of food-elements' in the ration ; but it indicates a 



Moser's results in regard to the other ingredients of maize 



fodder show that the sample he worked with was in all respects 



more digestible than the average meadow or clover hay, except 



tiics,.. are cut before blossom, and was, roundly speaking, twice 



tible as the straw of the cereal grains. 



I am indebted to my friend and late assistant, E. H. Jenkins, 

 M. A., for carrying out the details of the foregoing analyses. 



XXIII.— On the Meteoric Stone of Rochester, Fulton County, In- 

 diana; bv Chakles Upham Shkpabd, Massachusetts Pro- 

 fessor of Natural History in Amherst College. 



A fall of a meteoric stone took place at about 8:45 

 Thursday evening of the 21st of December, 1876. The cir- 

 c m t onnected therewith are drawn from several com- 



munications.* The first is from Professor Daniel Kirkwood, of 

 Bloominaton, Indiana, Professor of Mathematics m the Indiana 

 State TJniv - Journal. 



Professor Kirkwood's account says: "Last evening, Dec. 21, 



