148 Prof. Maskelyne and Dr. Lang's Miner alogical Notes. 



Notices of Aerolites. By Nevil Story Maskelyne. 



Kusiali, Kumaon. 



A small but very interesting fragment of an aerolite was 

 sent to me a few weeks since by my friend Dr. Oldham, the 

 Director of the Geological Survey of India. It weighs 63 grains. 

 It was accompanied by the following statement from Dr. Old- 

 ham : — 



" Small fragment of meteorite that fell close to Kusiali vil- 

 lage, in the district of British Gurhwal (say 30° N. lat., 79° E. 

 long.). There are stated to have been eight or ten explosions 

 nearly half an hour before the stone fell, to have been a strong 

 light like burning gunpowder in the track of the stone, which 

 came (apparently to observers) from the north-north-west to 

 south-south-east. 



" The mass is described to have fallen on an open surface of 

 hard gneiss-rock, and to have been shattered into fragments, 

 none of which were larger than the piece I send, most of them 

 much smaller." 



The fall took place a few minutes before 5 o'clock a.m., on 

 the 16th of June 1860. 



Dr. Oldham adds that there was only one other specimen 

 preserved, and that it has unfortunately been lost. The rest of 

 the fragments were eagerly seized by the natives, who attribute 

 to these sky- stones healing properties, that recall to our minds 

 superstitions that have raised minerals into talismans, from the 

 remotest time down to our own days. It may not be impossible, 

 however, that the iron that is present in these bodies in a state 

 of such minute division may have been found to act medici- 

 nally as a tonic. 



The strange statement that the fall of the aerolite was pre- 

 ceded, by so long a period as half an hour, by a series of explo- 

 sions, is one so irreconcilable with any intelligible explanation 

 that should connect the two phenomena, that we may fairly hold 

 ourselves relieved from the attempt to supply such an explana- 

 tion. 



The Kusiali stone is a chondrite, but it belongs to the group 

 of this class which is least charged with spherules. 



It is very full of the opake white flocculence which is so 

 abundant in some aerolites and entirely absent from others; 

 and in the interstices of this confused aggregate of mineral are 

 seen crystalline granules that are sometimes complete crystals, 

 but oftener without any geometrical form that can be traced. 

 These generally seem to be olivine, but they are also sometimes in 

 bars, and have occasionally the divergent structure, features which 

 I take to be, in these as in similar cases, characteristic of the au- 



