on certain stony and metalline Substances, -See, 187 
substances, and in establishing the assertion, that they have 
fallen on the earth. 
The analysis made by the French Academicians, of the 
stone presented to them by the Abbe Bachelay, was, in part, 
conducted by the ever to be deplored Lavoisier; but it was 
performed before that celebrated author had enriched chemistry 
with his last discoveries, and before he had given birth to the 
system under which it flourishes. The result of this analysis 
might well induce the conclusion, that the subject of it was 
common pyritical matter. It was unfortunately made of an 
aggregate portion of the stone, and not of each distinct substance, 
irregularly disseminated through it. The proportions obtained 
were, consequently, as accidental as the arrangement of every 
substance in the mass. 
The analysis of M. Barthold, of the stone of Ensisheim, is 
subject to the same objections : but, after having the advantage 
of the foregoing descriptions, the researches which follow cannot 
be supposed altogether liable to a similar fatality. 
EXAMINATION OF THE STONE FROM BENARES. 
This stone, as the Count de Bournon has already re- 
marked, has the most distinguished characters. Indeed it is 
the only one of the four, sufficiently perfect (if I be allowed 
that expression) to be subjected to any thing approaching to 
a regular analysis. 
The crust, or external black covering, is the first substance 
to which the attention is naturally directed. When a portion of 
this crust had been detached with a knife, or a file, and finely 
pulverized, I separated the particles attractable by a magnet; 
B b 2 
