174 JWh Howard's 'Experiments and Observations 
from the clouds near Sienna, was evidently freshly vitrified, and 
was black, having every sign of having passed through an 
extreme heat ; the inside was of a light gray colour, mixed with 
black spots and some shining particles, which the learned there 
had decided to be pyrites. 
In 1796, a stone weighing 56 lbs. was exhibited in London, 
with several attestations of persons who, on the 13th of Decem- 
ber, 1795, -saw it fall, near Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire, at about 
three o'clock in the afternoon . It had penetrated through 1 2 inches 
of soil and 6 inches of solid chalk rock; and, in burying itself, had 
thrown up an immense quantity of earth, to a great distance : as 
it fell, a number of explosions were heard, about as loud as pistols. 
In the adjacent villages, the sounds heard were taken for guns 
at sea; but, at two adjoining villages, were so distinct of some- 
thing singular passing through the air, towards the habitation 
of Mr. Topham, that five or six people came up, to see if any 
thing extraordinary had happened to his house or grounds. 
When the stone was extracted, it was warm, smoked, and 
smelt very strongly of sulphur. Its course, as far as could be 
collected from different accounts, was from the south-west. The 
day was mild and hazy, a sort of weather very frequent in the 
Wold hills, when there are no winds or storms ; but there was 
not any thunder or lightning the whole day. No such stone is 
known in the country. There was no eruption in the earth ; 
and, from its form, it could not come from any building ; and, 
as the day was not tempestuous, it did not seem probable that 
it could have been forced from any rocks, the nearest of which 
are those of Hamborough Head, at a distance of twelve miles.* 
The nearest volcano, I believe to be Hecla, in Iceland. 
* Extracted from the printed paper delivered at the place of exhibition. 
