Astronomy. 243 



Navy. 44 pp. 4to, with six plates.— After a brief account of the 



founding of the < >bservatorv, its library, and its position, the 

 several instruments are described, the Mural circle and Transit in- 

 strument mounted in 1844, the Prime Vertical Transit Instrument 

 and 9-6 inch Equatorial mounted in 1845, the Transit circle 

 » ' " ' ! iii !M3o, and the 20-inch Equatorial mounted in 1-7:;, 

 and to the descriptions are added heliotype representations of 



^ 'i Xote of the recent fall of three Meteoric Stones, in Indiana, 

 j.'is.p.uri, and Kenturhi/ ; by J. Lawrence Smith, Louisville, 

 h.v. (Communicated.)— Three meteorites were seen to fall inside 

 of a comparatively small region of the United States within the 

 space of about one month. These falls were accompanied by some 

 ii<teiv*iiiig phenomena, and in the case of the fall of the twenty- 

 tirst of December, the appearance of the bolide from which it came 

 was truly magnificent, and was seen over a large tract of country, 

 from west to east. My object at the present time is simply to 

 announce these tails, reserving for a future communication fuller 

 details, when I have completed their chemical and rnineralngical 

 ■! -. 1 will then call attention to an interesting aerobtic 

 belt in this country, in which a veiy large number of meteorites 

 have fallen during the past sixteen years. 

 No. 1, fell on December twenty-first, 1876, at 8\ 40 ra , p. m. This 

 bolide was Been to pass over the States of Kansas, 

 -Ui-><uri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio— a distance from east to west 



passage, produ i_ i 1 l it - ising each < thet 



across the sky, the number beinir variously estimated from twenty 

 '""'»' hundred." The passage of it is described in this Journal 

 for February, 1877. A piece from this bolide, of a fev ounces in 

 ' en found neaj Ro » tude 41 ° 8 ', 



36° 12', and I have received a portion of it for examina- 



No. 2. On January third, 1877, at sunrise, in Warren County, 



Missouri, latitude :>- 4 ;,o', longitude 01° In', the usual phenomena 

 i - the falls of meteorites attracted thr " +t " 



...„„, who saw the stone strike the branch of a tree, 



(whn-h it broke), then fall to the ground, penetrating it slightly, 

 "" -oltiug the snow that lay on u< frozen surface T * 

 mediately after, and a portio 



; has been s< 



■ntv-third. 1877, in the afte 



the depth of thirteen 

 1 near the spot where 

 weisrhs about fifteen 



