HOVEY, THE FOYER METEORITES 7 



miles; judge then of its parabola. The philosophers here incline to the first 

 solution. I wish much, Sir, to know your sentiments. My first objection 

 was to the fact itself; but of this there are so many eye-witnesses, it seems 

 impossible to withstand their evidence, and now I am reduced to a perfect 

 scepticism.' His lordship was pleased to send me a piece of one of the 

 largest stones, which when entire weighed upwards of 5 lb.; I have seen 

 another that has been sent to Naples entire, and weighs about 1 lb. The 

 outside of every stone that has been found, and has been ascertained to 

 have fallen from the cloud near Sienna, is evidently freshly vitrified, and is 

 black, having every sign of having passed through an extreme heat; when 

 broken, the inside is of a light grey color mixed with black spots, and some 

 shining particles, which the learned here have decided to be pyrites, and 

 therefore it cannot be a lava, or they would have been decomposed." 



Scientists, however, are often hard to convince, and some of that day 

 contended that the Siena stone had been formed in the air by condensa- 

 tion of the particles of dust in an eruption cloud from Vesuvius, in spite 

 of the fact that Siena is 250 miles distant from the volcano and that the 

 largest stone of the shower weighed 7^ pounds, while several weighed 

 more than 1 pound each. Even the 56-pound stone which fell Decem- 

 ber 13, 1795, at Wold Cottage near Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, 

 almost at the feet of a laborer, did not dislodge this theory from the 

 mind of Edward King, its originator. 



The cloud theory was completely disproved at Krakhut near Benares, 

 India, on December 19, 1798, when, directly after the passage of a ball 

 of fire through the air, a heavy explosion or a series of explosions was 

 heard and many stones 1 fell from a sky which had been perfectly cloud- 

 less for a week before the event and remained so for many days after- 

 ward. Even these facts, however, did not fully convince the scien- 

 tists of France and it required the occurrence of the meteoritic 

 shower of L'Aigle, France, April 26, 1803, for final proof. 2 L'Aigle 

 is easily accessible from Paris and M. Biot, a noted physicist was sent at 

 once to investigate the matter. Biot learned that on the day mentioned 

 a violent explosion occurred in a practically clear sky in the vicinity of 



1 Represented in the general meteorite collection, Morgan Hall, No. 404 of the 

 fourth floor of this building, by a small fragment one fourth of an ounce (8 grammes) 

 in weight. 



2 A fragment of L'Aigle weighing 5 ounces (157 grammes) is in the general 

 collection. 



