The ladies at Cozone, about twenty miles from Siena, saw a number of them come down with a great noise, in a neighbouring meadow ; and one of them, which was soon after taken up by a young woman, burned her hand; another burned a peasant's hat ; a third struck off a branch from a mulberry-tree ; and a fourth very nearly hit a girl who was tending a flock of sheep. At Cozone, however, the stones were of a small size, and accom panied with the fall of sand ; thus intimating a close connection between meteor lies and showers of sand.
The specific gravity of the Siena stones was found to be about 3 3, or 3 4 ; and one of them, treated by Mr. H 'ward, as particularly detailed in the 92d vol. of the Philosophical Transactions, yielded, Silica, 46 66 Magnesia, 22.67 I ron, 34.67 Nickel 2 106 A pretty entire specimen occurs in Mr. Ferguson's collection.
The preceding case affords a striking example of the different manner in which we regard a phenomenon by itself, and the very same phenomenon, when we consi der it in connection with others. The naturalits of Siena, aware that the stones had fallen after one of the most violent tempests, and on the day immediately subsequent to one of the most formidable eruptions of Vesuvius, were inclined to view it as electrical or volcanic ; and Soldani stood almost single in the opinion, that the ap pearance was independent of the eruption. But they who now contemplate the same tact in its relation with so many others, who know that the Siena stones present both the same physical characters, and the same chemi cal results with others which are ascertained to have fallen in different parts of the world, when not a breeze or a cloud interrupted the serenity of the weather, are decidedly convinced that it has no reference to any vol canic eruption, or to any ordinary storm.
April 13, 1795. Stones fell in Ceylon. Beck.
The circumstances attending the fall of the Yorkshire stone are thus detailed by M .jnr Topham: " The man, who, by some fortuitous circumstance, happens to possess any extraordinary curiosity, has a very troublesome companion. It was my good fortune to tumble into this predicament by a stone falling near my house in the country : and though I have been call ed upon, both publicly and privately, for a thousand ac counts, arid have answered innumerable inquiries, I was resolved to consign the stone in question to some public museum, and to deliver with it the most accurate ac count I was able to take from living witnesses on the spot, as I was at that time engaged on business in Lon don. The stone, therefore, will no longer blush un
seen,' but be subject to be examined by every philoso pher in the united kingdom, who may choose to visit the Museum of Mr. Sowerby....
" Having premised thus much, I shall proceed to state what circumstances attended the falling of the stone in question, which was witnessed by many people who could have no interest in fabricating a false account, and were far too simple to have done so. What is most sin gular is, that it should have been so well attested, be cause, on the high wolds of Yorkshire, thousands of stones might have fallen, and there might not have been even a solitary shepherd, or his more solitary dog, to have witnessed the occurrence.
" It was on Sunday, about three o'clock, the 13th of December, in the year 1795, that the stone in question fell within two fields of my houSe. The weather was misty, and, at times, inclining to rain ; and though there was some thunder and lightning at a distance, it was not till the falling of the stone that the explosion took place, which alarmed the surrounding country, and which cre ated so distinctly the sensation that something very sin gular had happened.
" When the stone fell, a shepherd of mine, who was returning from his sheep, was about 150 yards from the spot ; George Sawden, a carpenter, ttas passing within 60 yards ; and John Shipley, one of my farming servants, was so near the spot where it fell, that he was struck very forcibly by some of the mud and earth raised by the stone dashing into the earth, which it penetrated to the depth of twelve inches, and seven afterwards into the chalk rock, making in all a depth of nineteen inches from the surface.
" While the stone was passing through the air—which it did in a north-east direction from the sea coast— numbers of persons distinguished a body passing through the clouds, though not able to what it was ; and two sons of the clergyman of \Void Newton ( a village near m,.) saw it pas, so distinctly by them, that they ran up immediately to my house, to know if any thing ex traordinary had happened.