306 The Shalka Meteorite. [No. 4. 



stone; there was also a rolling noise,* sufficiently loud to alarm the 

 witness who heard it though not amounting to the explosion which 

 accompanied the Cape meteor. f It will subsequently be seen that, 

 though the witnesses give us no evidence to that effect, the stone was 

 doubtless hot when it fell. The angle of fall seems to have been be- 

 tween 45° and 80 with the horizon. "With regard to the second stone 

 said to have fallen on the same night, I wrote to Mr. Patton, the Civil 

 and Session Judge of Burdwan concerning it, and he has kindly caused 

 every enquiry to be made, but cannot trace any truth in the report. 

 It is not, however, improbable that the natives of the vicinity having 

 carried off the whole of the stone may have leagued together to deny 

 that any fall took place, fancying that they might be brought into some 

 trouble now that the Hoozoor% was enquiring about it. 



So far as to the circumstances attending the acquisition of the 

 Meteorite and the evidence of the facts connected with its fall, I now 

 proceed to describe what we have received, and to remark upon some 

 physical peculiarities, reserving the description of the stone as a 

 mineral for the chemical part of this report. 



We have received two large lumps of 2 or 3ife. each, with 2 or 3 fts. 

 of smaller pieces and fragments, and perhaps half a pound more firmly 

 embedded in the earth sent with the specimen. This is, of course, all 

 Mr. Mactier could rescue from the natives who, it appears, have carried 

 off the greater part of it, as they always do, for religious, medicinal and 

 superstitious purposes. We were thus not an hour too soon in our 



* The imitative Bengalee word is such as would be used to express the loud 

 rolling of heavy hail clouds, or something between distant musketry and low thun- 

 der. 



f I have not seen it noticed that one of the oldest and best detailed descriptions 

 of the fall of a Meteorite, is found in Virgil ; iEneid B. II. 1. 692. I copy here the 

 passage, which Virgil probably wrote from some account which was then extant. 

 " Vix ea fatus erat senior, subitoque fragore 

 Intonuit lsevum, et de ccelo lapsa per umbras 

 Stella facem ducens multa cum luce cucurrit. 

 Illam, summa super labentem culmina tecti, 

 Cernimus Idsea claram se condere sylva, 

 Signantemque vias ; turn longo limite sulcus 

 Dat lucem, et late circum loca sulfure fumant." 

 % Anglice. The chief authority. 



