March 5 and 6, 1808. A shower of red snow felt, during three nights. in Carniota, an over the whole surface of Curnia, Cadore, Belluno. and Feltri, to the height of five feet ten inches. Tile cant' was pre viously covered with snow of a pure white, and the coloured variety was al.,ain succeeded t y common sort, the two kinds remaining perlecil) distinct.
during liquefaction. When a portion of the red was melted, and the water evapora.ce, a little fine ly dit tiled earth, of a rose hue, remained not attractable I.) tile magnet, and consisting oi sit( x, alinni.le, and i,xy of iron. The same phenomenon was obseived at the time, on the mountains of the Valteline, Brescia, and tile Tyrol.
April 19, 1808. At one o'clock P. JI. stones tell at Borgo San Domino, near Pieve di Cassignano, in the department of Taro, and in the nen; net,u rhood of Parma and Piacenza. Guidotti, who analyz...d a specimen, found it to consist of, 106.50 A specimen of this shower is preserved in the Vi enna cabinet, a repository rich in the number of samples of this description of stones.
May 22, 18o8. At six o'clock in the morning, a shower of stones occurred at Stannern, near Iglau, in Moravia, attended with tht usual circumstances. These stones are described as of a whitish or bluish-grey, tender, friable, not magnetic, speckled with black points, containing very few visible metallic partie les. except some prominent grains, not attractable by the magnet, and probably pyritical. The exterior crust resembled a black, or brown varnish. very glossy and vitreous, having the surface marked by minute folds or wrinkles. TI cir specific gravity was 3.19 ; and the result of their analysis by Veuquelin, September 3, 1808. M. Reuss, counsellor of mines, has published a Memoir on the meteorites which tell, at half past tnree o'clock in the afternoon, near Lissa, in Bohemia : and from this document we have selected the following must match I circumstances.
Four day s alter the event, the mayor of the district received an official report on the subject, as did alter wards M Merkl, counsellor of the government, w ho communicated dn. contents to the Chancery. Lisa 1 is a small town, situated lour miles west north-we..t irom Pri.gue ; and the district in which the stones fell is a plain, which extends southwards to the banks of the Elbe. The soil, in general, is a dry meagre sand, lit
only for the culture ol rye, and the rocks white it comprizes arc ol a ferruginous a•gillaccous sandstone.
field on which the int tuorites alighted had been et cently p:oug,hed, and had for its basis a very open, sandy earth, in.o which, nevertheless, one of the stones sunk only to the depth of lour inch ,s Another, which fell un an adjoining held, of a sont,w hat more compact and argillact ous textui c, penetrated four or five inches. A third fell in a small pine forest, on a sandy soil, co vered here and there with green turf, and left, in like manner, a mark of four or five inches deep. Though all its angles were more or less fractured. it weighed five pounds nine ounces and a half The most intel ligent people in the neighbourhood declared that they heard a violent detonation, like the discharge of many pieces of ordnance, followed by a noise phloon firing, or a prolonged beating of drums, which lasted for twenty or twenty five minutes The sky, watch h'd heen perfectly clear, became covered as with a thin gauze, through which the sun's rays easily penetrated ; lam nobody perceived lightning, nor any luminous me teor, nor felt any of that oppressive uneasiness, which frequently indicates an electrified atmosphere. Of the four masses which were collected, the actual descent of none through the air appears to have been distinctly witnessed ; but some reapers, who took up one of them, at the moment that it struck the ground, felt it as cold as the surrounding stones ; and none of them stained the fingers, or emitted any sulphureous odour. In other respects. they bore a manifest resemblance to many of those which we have described, being com posed of mixed ingredients, of a pale cinereous grey colour, and granular texture, traversed in every direc tion by small veins anAl sp.,ckled with minute, dissemi nated glohules. Their specific gravity is stated at 3.56, and Claprothlound them to contain, 96.50 All the iron contained in the specimen submitted to trial, appeared to be in the metallic state. The pecu liarities attending this case are, detonation without any luminous meteor, the very moderate impetus of the falling bodies, and their want of sensible heat.