November 3, 1817. According to the French news papers, a meteor of considerable size fell, in the morn ing, in the Rue de Richelieu, Paris, de,cencling with so much force as to displace a part of the pave ment, and to sink to some depth in the earth. It was accompanied by a sulphureons smell, and seemed to have been recently in a state of ignition ur combustion. If such an incident really took place, it is to be hoped that some more distinct memorial of the particulars, and the exhibition of the stone itself, will not be withholden from the public.
In regard to the alleged fall of a great stone at Li moges, on February 15. 1818, and which Chladni pro bably copied Iron the ',two( prints, the report seems to have been pr, Filature. See the new edition of Abu __ -clean Dictionnaire d'Hietoire Naturelle, t. 26, p. 270, in the margin.
July 29, O. S. 1818. A stone of seven pounds weight fell at the village of Slobodka, in the province of Smo lensko, and penetrated nearly sixteen inches into the ground. It had a brown crust with metallic spots. Edin. Journ. of Science, No. 2.
Before closing our chronological register, it will be proper shortly to advert to the mention of various real or alleged meteoric masses, the dates of whose history can no longer be ascertained.
That which was preserved in the gymnasium of Aby dos, as quoted by Pliny.
That which gave rise to the establishment of a colo ny at Potidxa. Id.
The black stone, and another deposited in the Caaba of Mecca.
The thunderbolt, described in Antar as black in ap pearance, like a hard rock, brilliant and sparkling, and of which the blacksmith forged the sword of Antar.
The mass of cellulsr iron, described by Pallas.
Patrin, &c. and found near Krasnojark, in Siberia. The tradition of the Tartars assigns to it an atmosphe ric origin ; and the analogy of its aspect, texture, and chemical characters with those of other chemical bodies, whose descent from the air is no longer questioned, powerfully tends to confirm the tradition. Although the latter ascribes the formation of this extraordinary mass to a period which is lost in the remoteness of an tiquity, its existence was first proclaimed, with the re qusite circumstances of authenticity, to the learned of Europe in 1750, the year immediately subsequent to the discovery of a rich vein of iron ore, near Abakansk, by the Cossac Medvedief. As M. M. Mettich, inspec tor of mines, examined this vein, he remarked that it was about seventeen inches thick, and that it traversed a grey and compact hornstone, which apparently com posed the whole mountain. About 150 toises to the
west of this mine he discovered a mass of iron, which he conjectured might weigh onwards of thirty poods. Is was full of small, yellow, and rough stones, of the size of a kernel of the cedar cone; and it lay on the very ridge of the hill, which is covered with firs, with out adhering to the rock. Being much puzzled to de termine whether it had been formed naturally on the spot, or conveyed thither, he sought, with eager but fruitless diligence, for the slightest trace of any ancient iron forge. Dr. Pallas was likewise deci.'edly of opi nion, that it could never have been produced in the rude furnaces or kilns of the Siberian miners, which were never known to yield more than fifty or sixty pounds of metal at a time ; whereas the present mass, before any fragments were detached from it, weighed somewhat more than 1680 pounds. The iron is of a coarse spongy texture, little contaminated by impuri ties, perfectly flexible, and capable of being converted into small tools by a moderate heat. When exposed, however, to a high temperature, and especially when fused, it becomes dry and brittle, resolves into grains, and refuses to cohere or extend under the hammer. In its natural state, it is incrusted with a sort of varnish, which has protected it from rust ; but when this coat ing is removed, or when broken in the state of bar iron, the usual process of oxidation very readily takes place. The cavitie s in the mass are filled with a tran sparent, aniber.culoured substance, in the form of roundish grains or drops, presenting one or more flat and glossy surfaces. The mass has no regular form. but resembles a large, oblong. and somewhat flattened block, externally coated like the nodules of some of the blackish brown ores of iron. "This coating," says Pallas, "is also very rich in iron; and even the trans parent fluor yields some punds of bon in the hundred. Whoever will consider the mass itself, or large speci mens of it, will not have the least doubt of its having been wrought by nature, since it has no one character of scoriaceous matters melted by artificial fire, or of those commonly found among volcanos. No volcanic ground, indeed, has been remarked nearer the moun tains of Yenissei than the extinct craters of Daouria, si tuated at 1500 miles to the cast.