84 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



earthquake phenomena ; and these latter frequently appear to exercise 

 a certain influence upon the weather.^ 



M. Von Lang has recently made known to the Imperial Academy 

 of Sciences at Vienna the great variety of crystalline forms that 

 sulphate of lead (Anglesite) is capable of taking in nature. Although 

 isomorphous with sulphate of baryta {Barytine) and sulphate of 

 strontia {Celestine), Anglesite possesses a far greater variety of forms 

 than either of these two minerals. M. Von Lang, taking advantage 

 of the immense number of samples of Anglesite existing in the Vienna 

 collections, has written upon this substance a considerable monograph. 

 The number of different crystals (all derivable from one type) of 

 which he has measured the angles, amounts to more than 150. 



M. Buckeisen, a pupil of M. Wohler, the distinguished professor of 

 chemistry at the University of Gottingen, has analysed a meteoric 

 stone which fell on the night between the 10th and 11th of October, 

 1857, not far from Ohaba, a village situated near Kalsbourg, in 

 Austria. This stone has been placed by Dr. Homes in the collection 

 of the Imperial Institute of Geology at Vienna. It was seen to fall 

 by a Greek priest, Nicolas Maldowan, about midnight on the 10th of 

 October : the noise which accompanied its descent was like a loud 

 clap of thunder. It fell with the quickness of lightning, and sank 

 some distance into the ground at a spot covered with moss. Its 

 weight is about 30 lbs. ; its specific gravity 3.11, and it has a 

 pyramidal shape. On being broken, it showed (by the aid of a 

 magnifying glass), in the fractured part, crystalline grains of olivine, 

 of metallic iron, and of magnetic oxide of iron. From M. Buckeisen's 



* With respect to sounds resembling artillery, the utmost caution should be 

 used, from the distance at which guns can occasionally be heard. I have distinctly 

 heard the practice-firing at Woolwich from the downs behind Folkestone ; and at 

 that to^vn the salutes fi'om the forts at Boulogne, thu-ty-two miles off, are per- 

 fectly audible. I remember hearing, while walking on Dover pier, the low rumble 

 of the bombardment of Antwerp by the French in 1832, the distance of which, in 

 a straight line, I should think must be something like one hundi'ed and thirty miles. 

 The sounds of ships' guns are very like those described in the above.>rticle, and are 

 audible for long distances, and the large calibre of the cannon now used increases 

 very greatly the range of sound. 



While I was sketching in Hythe chm-ch, two or thi-ee years since, the per- 

 cussion of the evening guns of some men-of-Avar lying off Sandgate clattered the 

 panes of glass in the windows of that fabric, which stands on a hmestone-hill, and 

 is of early English architecture, based on Norman foundations, and in good 

 repair. These remarks are not made with a desire to invalidate the stated 

 nature of the sounds alluded to by Dr. Phipsou, and the authorities he quotes, but 

 with the view to show the imperative necessity of the utmost caution m the 

 observation of such phenomena. 



The peculiar hollow booming of the waves on the sea-shore before a storm is 

 too palpable to escape notice, and is generally, as far as I recollect, accompanied 

 by a remarkable stillness, or rather silence, if I may express it, to distinguish it 

 from any ideas of atmospheric motion, — a stillness m which the noises of various 

 objects are unusually perfect and distinct. 



The breaking of the waves when heard from behind an obstniction, such as a 

 wall, bank, hill, or street, is sometimes not unlike the sound of ginis.— Ed. 

 Geologist. 



