Aecrolites, 211 
the point of engaging with the French army. It was pre- 
served asa relic in the Cathedral at Ensisheim, until the 
beginning of the French revolution, when it was conveyed 
to the Public Library of Colmar, and it is still preserved 
there among the treasures. 
In later years the shower of aérolites which fell in April, 
1803, at L’Aigle, in Normandy, may well rank as the most 
extraordinary descent upon record. A large fire-ball had 
been observed afew moments previously, in the neighbour- 
hood of Caen and Alengon, where the sky was perfectly 
clear and cloudless, At L’Aigle no appearance of light 
was visible, and the fire-ball assumed instead the form of a 
small black cloud, consisting of vapour, which suddenly 
broke up with a violent explosion, followed several times 
by a peculiar rattling noise. The stones at the time of 
their descent were hot, but not red, and smoked visibly. 
The number which were afterwards collected within an 
elliptical area measuring from six to seven miles in length, 
by three in breadth, has been variously estimated at from 
two to three thousand. They ranged in weight from 2 
drachms up to 174 lb. The French Government imme- 
diately deputed M. Biot, the celebrated naturalist and phi- 
losopher, to proceed to the spot, for the express purpose of 
collecting the authentic facts concerning a phenomenon 
which, until that time, had almost universally been treated 
as an instance of popular superstition and credulity. His 
conclusive report was the means of putting an end to all 
scepticism on the subject, and since that date the reality— 
not merely the possibility—-of such occurrences has no 
longer been contested. 
Leaving out, for the present, innumerable foreign in- 
stances which might be quoted, we must now glance rapidly 
ata few of the most noticeable examples of the fall of 
meteoric stones which have taken place in England. The 
earliest which appears on record descended in Devonshire, 
near Sir George Chudleigh’s house at Stretchleigh, in the 
parish of Ermington, about twelve miles from Plymouth. 
The circumstance is thus related by Westcote, one of the 
quaint old Devonshire historians :-— 
“In some part of this manor (Stretchleigh), there fell 
from above—I cannot say from heaven—a stone of twenty- 
three pounds weight, with a great and fearful noise in fall- 
ing; first it was heard like unto thunder, or rather to be 
thought the report of some great ordnance, cannon, or 
culverin; and as it descended, so did the noise lessen, at 
Gee 
