438 Prof. Maskclync and Dr. Lang's Minerahgical Notes. 



11. Parnallee. 



The larger of the two stones which fell near the village of Par- 

 nallee, sixteen miles south of Madura in the Carnatic (lat. 9° 14', 

 long. 78° 21'), on February 28, 1857, was preserved in the cen- 

 tral museum at Madras. It weighs 127 lbs., and has been pre- 

 sented to the British Museum by His Excellency Sir William 

 Denison, K.C.B., Governor of the Madras Presidency. 



The smaller stone, weighing about 37 lbs., was presented by 

 the Government of Madras to the gentleman to whom we are 

 indebted for the account of the fall and the preservation of the 

 specimens, the Rev. H. S. Taylor, an American missionary cler- 

 gyman. He transmitted it to his native country, where it is now 

 preserved in the museum of the Western Reserve College of 

 Hudson, Ohio. This smaller stone has been described in general 

 terms and figured by Professor Cassels in Silliman's Journal for 

 November 1861, page 401. Hofrath Haidinger* has also noticed 

 it, and has drawn attention to the beauty of its polished surface. 



The description of the circumstances attending the fall of the 

 aerolites was forwarded, mainly through the instrumentality of 

 Mr. Taylor, to the Madras Government, and may be epitomized 

 as follows. The two stones fell two or three miles apart, the 

 larger one to the north of the smaller one and a few seconds 

 before it. How the priority in time of the fall of the larger stone 

 came to be observed is not recorded ; nor is it very easy to see 

 how it could be established, as neither stone was seen during its 

 passage through the air. 



Judging from the inclination of the hole made in the ground 

 by the larger mass, and which measured 2 feet 5 inches in depth 

 (whether inclusive or exclusive of the huge stone is omitted from 

 the account), it was estimated that it came from a direction about 

 10° west of north, and at an angle with the perpendicular of some 

 15° or 2(P. Mr. Taylor, however, speaks of the small stone, like 

 the large one, falling " about perpendicularly." It would be a 

 curious fact if the smaller stone flew further than the larger; 

 but the difference in the resistance offered to their passage 

 through the atmosphere by their very different forms may explain 

 this if the statement be correct. The reports were like two claps 

 of thunder, and were heard as far off as Tuticorin on the Gulf of 

 Manar, a distance of 40 miles nearly due south. This last fact, 

 coupled with the idea some of the natives had formed that the 

 stones had been shot by guns on ships from Tuticorin, or had 

 been brought by a Brahman by his muntrums from the sea, in- 

 cline me to believe an E. by S. to a W. by N. direction to have 

 been that of the aerolites rather than the opposite direction, as 

 * Sessional Proceedings of the Vienna Academy, 1861. 



