278 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
having fallen at Rochester in Indiana, Cynthiana in Kentucky, and War- 
rington in Missouri, within the space of a month. The phenomena 
attending the fall were of the usual character, hut on a grander scale. It 
occurred about five in the afternoon on May 10th, 1879, with the sun 
shining brightly. In some places the meteorite was plainly visible in its 
passage through the air, and looked like a ball of fire with a long train of 
vapour or cloud of fire behind it ; and one observer saw it a hundred miles 
from where it fell. Its course was from north-west to south-east. The 
sounds produced in its course are described as being 1 terrible ’ and ‘ inde- 
scribable/ at first louder than the largest artillery, followed by a rumbling 
noise as of a train of cars crossing a bridge. Two persons were within two 
or three hundred yards of the spots where the two larger masses struck the 
earth. There were distinctly two explosions : the first took place at a con- 
siderable height in the atmosphere, and several fragments were projected to 
different points over an area of four square miles, the largest going furthest 
to the east. Another explosion occurred just before reaching the ground, and 
this accounts for the small fragments found near the largest mass. The 
largest mass fell within two hundred feet of a dwelling-house, at a spot 
where there was a hole, six feet deep, filled with water. The clay at 
the bottom of the hole was excavated to a depth of eight feet before the 
meteorite was reached. Two or three days elapsed before it was reached. 
The second large mass penetrated blue clay to a depth of five feet, at a spot 
about two miles distant from the first. The third of the larger masses was 
found on the 23rd February of the present year at a place four miles from 
the first, in a dried-up slough. On digging a hole the stone was met with at a 
depth of five feet. The fragments thus far obtained weigh respectively 437, 
170, 92|, 28. 10|, 4, and 2 pounds. The height of the meteor is calculated 
to have been forty miles, and its velocity from two to four miles per second, 
The masses are rough and knotted, like large mulberry calculi, with rounded 
protuberances projecting from the surface on every side. The black coating 
is not uniform, being most marked between the projections. These projec- 
tions have sometimes a bright metallic surface, showing them to consist of 
nodules of iron; and they also contain lumps of an olive-green mineral, 
having a distinct and easy cleavage. The greater part of the stony material 
is of a grey colour, with the green mineral irregularly disseminated through it. 
The masses vary very much in density in their different parts, the average 
cannot be less than 4'5. When a mass is broken, one is immediately struck 
with the large nodules of metal among the grey and green stony substance ; 
some of them will weigh 100 grammes or more. In this respect this meteorite 
is unique ; it differs entirely from the siderolites of Pallas, Atacama, &c., or 
the known meteoric stones rich in iron, for in none of them has the iron this 
nodular character. The larger nodules of iron appear to have shrunk away 
from the matrix ; an elongated fissure of from two to three millimetres some- 
times intervenes, separating the matrix and nodules to the extent of one- 
half the circumference of the latter. The only mineral which could be 
picked out separately has an olive-green colour ; it occurs in masses, from 
one half-inch to one inch in size, has an easy cleavage in one direction and 
was found to be olivine. The same mineral occurs in minute rounded con- 
cretions in other parts of the material ; and minute, almost colourless crystal- 
