^22 Account of Meteoric Stones and Masses of Iron^ 
minerals in their primitive state, which are ejected from the in- 
terior of our own globe by volcanoes situated in the polar re- 
gions, which produce at the same time the phenomena of the 
northern lights 
The last of these opinions is that of the late M. de la 
Grange, the most celebrated mathematician of modern times ; 
and all his views coincide with the second hypothesis above men- 
tioned, which had been previously proposed by Dr Brewster, 
La Grange supposes the bursting of a planet to be a very pro- 
bable event ; he maintains that meteoric stones are unchanged 
minerals from the interior of a planet, and he has investigated 
formulse for computing the velocity with which the fragments 
of a burst planet must be projected, in order to move in ellipti- 
cal, parabolic, or hyperbolic orbits. Assuming the initial velocity 
of a cannon ball at 1400 French feet per second, he has shewn 
that in the case of a planet situated beyond the orbit of Ura- 
nus, a velocity twelve or fifteen times greater than that of a 
cannon ball, would be sufficient to make the fragments move in 
an elliptical or parabolic orbit, whatever be their dimensions, and 
the directions in which they are projected. 
As a high degree of interest must always be attached to a 
subject like the present, we have drawn up the following list of 
meteoric stones, &c. including all those which have fallen, up to 
the present time. It is taken, to a certain extent, from a list 
newly published by the celebrated M. Chladni of Wirtemberg “|* ; 
but we have added to it several which are not included in his 
list, and have enlarged the account of others, from a manuscript 
paper on meteoric stones, drawn up by Thomas Allan, Esq., 
which was read some years ago to the Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh, and which he has kindly allowed us to use. A very 
great number of the phenomena, as given by Chladni, we have 
not taken from his paper, but from a very curious work by a 
Jesuit, Domenico Troili, entitled Della Caduta di un Sasso daW 
aria ragionamento^ Modena 1766, and in the possession of Tho- 
mas Allan, Esq. The ingenious author of that work, proves, 
in the clearest manner, both from ancient and modern history, 
that stones had repeatedly fallen from the heavens; and nothing 
can shew more strikingly the universality and obstinacy of that 
* La Grange, Sur VOrigine des Cometes, in the Conmissance de Terns 1814, p. ^11- 
■f Journal de Physique, Oct. 1818, p. 273. 
