COMMUNICATION 
TO THE 
MONTHLY MEETING 
OF THE 
YOEKSHIKE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 
1881. 
October 5th, 1881.—Mr. T. S. Noble, F.G-.S., Hon. Sec., 
read a paper on the Middlesborough Meteorite. He said that 
the British Museum and the Philosophical Society of Newcastle 
had competed for its possession, hut the directors ultimately 
determined to present it to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. 
A portion of the specimen had been cut off for the pm*poses of 
analysis, and the result would he reported to the members of 
the Society. Photographs of the surrounding locality at 
Middlesborough, showing the hole in the ground made by the 
meteorite, and kindly presented by the directors, were laid on 
the table. Mr. Noble then referred to the fact that the Lev. 
Canon Harcourt, the founder of this Society as well as of the 
British Association, in a work published a year or two before 
his death, drew attention to a meteorite which is recorded to 
have fallen in Grermany in the latter part of the fifteenth 
century. Mr. HarcourPs object in drawing attention to this 
matter was to illustrate the tendency of scientists to disparage 
the value of direct or positive evidence of the truth of facts 
when opposed to their own preconceived views. The quotation 
not only lays down a valuable rule which cannot be too carefuly 
observed in all cases where the investigation of truth and the 
refutation of error are concerned, but it also contains a par¬ 
ticular account of an event which occurred nearly 400 years 
ago, similar in many respects to the one at Middlesborough. 
Mr. Noble then read as follows :—A Dutch Ambassador, who 
entertaining the King of Siam with the particulars of Holland, 
