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portents of any future events, no prodigies are now either reported to govern- 
ment, or recorded in histories. (Livy, bk. xliii., ch. 13.) 
Towards the close of this year (584) it was reported that two showers of 
stones had fallen, one in the territory of Rome, the other in that of Yeii ; 
and the nine days’ solemnity was performed. (Livy, bk. xliv., ch. 18.) 
To come to the Middle Ages : a stone fell at Ensisbeim, on 
the Rhine. It was ordered to be preserved in the church near 
which it fell, together with a record, which thus commences : — 
“In the year of the Lord 1492, on Wednesday, which was 
Martinmas eve, the 7th of November, a singular miracle 
occurred ; for, between eleven o’clock and noon, there was a 
loud clap of thunder, and a prolonged confused noise., which 
was heard at a great distance ; and a stone fell from the air, in 
the jurisdiction of Ensisheim, which weighed 260 pounds, and 
the confused noise was, besides, much louder than here. 
Then a child saw it strike on a field in the upper jurisdiction, 
towards the Rhine and Inn, near the district of Giscano, 
which was sown with wheat ; and it did no harm, except that 
it made a hole there; and then they conveyed it from that 
spot ; and many pieces were broken from it, which the land- 
vogt forbade.” After remaining in the church for centuries, 
it was carried to Colmar during the French revolution. Many 
fragments were broken from it, which have found their way to 
many museums ; but the remainder of the relic was afterwards 
restored to the church of Ensisheim. 
A pamphlet published at the time, and now preserved in the 
King’s Library, British Museum, gives such a quaint and 
instructive account of the fall of a meteorite at Aldborough, 
in Suffolk, that I quote it at some length : — 
A signe from Heaven, or a fearfull and Terrible Noise, beard in the Ay re at 
Alborow, in the county of Suffolke, on Thursday, the 4th day of August, at 
5 of the clock in the afternoone. Wherein was heard the beating of Drums, 
the discharging of Muskets and great ordnance for the space of an houre and 
more, as will be attested by many men of good worth, and exhibited to some 
cheife members of the Honorable House of Commons. With a stone that fell 
from the sky in that Storme, or Noise rather, which is here to be seene in 
Towne, being of a great weight— Aug. 12. London : Printed by T. 
Fawcet, 1642. 
Upon Thursday, the 4th day of this instant August, about the hour of 
foure or five o’clocke in the afternoone, there was a wonderful noyse heard in 
the ayre, as of a Drum beating most fiercely, which after a while was 
seconded with a long peale of small shot, and after that a discharging as it 
were, of great ordnance in a pitcht-field. This continued with some vicissi- 
tudes of small shot and great ordnance for the space of one hour and an halfe, 
and then making a mighty and violent report altogether ; at the ceasing 
