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 {Anylesite) is capable of taking in nature. Although 
isoniorplious with sulphate of baryta [Barytine) and sulphate of 
strontia (Celedine), Anglesite possesses a far greater variety of forms 
than either of these two minerals. M. Vou Lang, taking advantage 
of the immense number of samjjles 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. Woliler, the distinguished professor of 
chemistry at the University of Gottingen, has analysed a meteoric 
stone which fell on the night between the lOth 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 lOth 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 giuis can occasionally lie heard. I have distinctly 
heard the j)ractice-firing at Woolwich from the downs l)ehind Folkestone; and at 
that town the salutes from the forts at Boulogne, thirty-two miles oft', are per- 
fectly audible. I remember hearing, while walking on Dover pier, the low nmible 
of the bombardment of Antwenj by the French in 1832, the distance of which, in 
a straight line, I should think nuist be something like one hmidi-ed and thirty miles. 
The sounds of ships' guns are \erj like those dest;ribed in the above article, 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 church, two or three years since, the per- 
cussion of the evening guns of some men-of-war lying oft" 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, 'ihese remarks are not made with a desire to invalidate the stated 
nature of the sounds alluded to by Dr. Phii)son, and the authorities he quotes, but 
with the view to show the imjjerative necessity of the utmost caution in the 
obseiTation 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, accomi)anied 
by a remarkable stillness, or rather silence, if I may express it, to distinguish it 
from any ideas of atmosjiheric motion, — a stillness hi which the noises of various 
objects are unusually j)erfect and distinct. 
The breaking of the waves wlien heard from behind an obstmction, such as a 
wall, bank, hill, or street, is sometimes not unlike the sound of guns. — Ed. 
Geologist. 
