A S.011e fell at Alexandria, io Egypt. Uc Sacy. —0. L. I, 130r, Krantz. in his Account of Saxony, and set,cial of time German Chroniclers, concur iu stating, that many stouts fell near Friedland or Viedeland, and that they did grca damage to the fields. But the Friedland of these authors, who probably copied from one :mother, is not sufficiently particularized, as there are many small towns and villages of that name. Span genberg more pointedly mentions Friedberg, near the Saale.-1305. Burning stones fell in the country of the Vandals. Bonay. de St ?lniable.—Jan. 9, 1328. Stones fell in Mortahia and Dakhalia. Quatremerc.-1360. Se veral stones were observed to fall from the clouds in Yorkshire. PM. Mag.-1368 A mass of iron fell in the Duchy of Oldenburg. Siebrand, Meyer.—May 26, 1379. Stones fell at Minden, in Hanover. Lerbecius.— 141 G. Red rain in Bohemia. •nangenbery.
1438. According to Proust, the chemist, stones of a spongy texture were observed to fall near Roa, at no great distance from Burgos, in Spain ; and, in support of his assertion, he quotes the ensuing extract of a letter from the Bachelor Cibdareal.
" King Don Juan and his court being engaged in a hunting party, under the village of Roa, the sun was obscured by w bite clouds, and they saw descending from the air bodies which resembled grey and blackish stones, and of such considerable dimensions as to excite the greatest astonishment.
" This phenomenon continued during an hour, after which the sun reappeared, and the falconers, mounted on their horses, Immediately repaired to the spot, which was not half a league distant. They reported to the king, that the field on which these stones lay, was so thickly strewed with them, of all sizes, as completely to conceal the soil.
"The king was desirous of visiting the scene, but his courtiers restrained him, by representing, that the place which heaven had selected for the theatre of its operations might be unsafe, and that it would he more advisable to detach one of his suite. Gomes Bravo, Captain of his Guards, volunteered his services, and brouht with him four of these stones to Boa, whither the king had now retired. They were of a considera ble size,'some round, and as big as a mortar, others shaped like pillows or half fanego measures : but the circumstance which created most astonishment, was their extreme levity, for the largest did not weigh half a pound. They were of such a delicate texture, that they resembled sea-froth condensed more than any thing ese. You might strike your hand against them, without any apprehension of contusion, pain, or the least mark." In respect of specific gravity, these stoles must have dilTered very materially from the heavier specimens of recent date. From the fragility of their texture, no trace of their existence probably now remains ; but the narrative. which bears all the marks or a genuine docu ment, may be regarded as, in some me asure, corrobora tive 01 the fall of the spongy masst s, noticed by Pliny, and of the fleecy showers of that naturalist. In the present instance. too, no mention is made of any luminous appearance or explosion. and it is not even said that the masses felt hot when first touched.
Some time in the same century, a stone. and a mass like coagulated blood. accompanied by a fiery dragon, (meteor), fell near Lucerne. Cysat.-1•8:). Stones fell in Saxony and Bonemia. Philos Mag.-1491. A stone fell near Crema. Simonetta.
November 7, 1492.—The far-famed stone of Ensis heim has exercised the talents of contemporaneous wri ters, both in prose and verse. Professor Batenschocn,
of the central school of Colmar, first directed the atten tion of naturalists to some of the old chronicles, which record the circumstances of its fall with much simpli city, and in the true spirit of the times The note which accompanied the stone, when it was suspended in the church of Ensishcim, may be rendered thus : " In the year of the Lord 1492, on Wednesday, which was .Martinmas eve, the 7th of November, there happened a singular miracle; for, between 11 o'clock and noon, there was a loud peal of thunder, and a pro longed confused noise, which was heard to a great dis tance, and there fell from the air, in the jurisdiction of Ensisheim, a stone which weighed 260 pounds, and the confused noise was, moreover, much louder than here. Then a child saw it strike on a field, situated in the upper jurisdiction, towards the Rhine and Inn,near the district of Gisgand, which was sown with wheat, and did it no harm, except that it made a hole there, and then they conveyed it from that spot, and many pieces were broken from it, which the Landvogt forbade. They, therefore, caused it to be placed in the church, with the intention of suspending it, as a miracle ; and there came here many people to see this stone. So there were remarkable conversations about this stone, but the learned said that they knew not what it was, for it was beyond the ordinary course of nature that such a large stone should smite the earth to the depth of a man's stature, which every body explained to be the will of God that it should he found, and the noise of it was heard at Lucerne, at \Tilling, and in many other places, so loud, that it was belit.ved houses had been overturned ; and, as the King Maximilian was here the Monday after St. Catharine's day of the same year. his Royal Excellency ordered the stone which had fallen to be brought to the castle, and, after having conversed a long time about it with the noblemen, he said that the people of Ensisheim should take it, and order it to be hung up in the church. and not to allow any body to take any thing from it. However, his Excellency took two pieces from it, of which he kept one, and sent the other to the Duke Sigismond of Austria, and they spoke a great deal about that stone, which they suspended in the choir, where it still is ; and a great malty people came to see it." According- to Trzthennus, it lell with so much violence that it broke into two pieces, ol which only the most considerable was suspended in the church. Paul Lang describes its form as corresponding to that of the Greek Delta, with a triangular point. Both of these writers lived at the period which they assign to the descent of this remarkable mass ; and, although their names are last hastening to obscurity, it behoves us to observe, that Trithennus yielded to iew of his contem poraries in labour and learning, and that Lang, though a Benedictine monk, travelled in quest of historical mo numents, and had the candour and boldness to arraign the license of the Roman Catholic clergy, while he ap plauded the independence of Luther and Melancthon. Wc may add, that Maximilian, who, shortly after this period, was elevated to the imperial digni y, in a Re script. dated Augsburg, November, 12, 1503, expressly refers to the stone in question, as having fallen in an open field before him, when he commanded the army which he had levied against the French ; and that, availing himself of the apparently miraculous event, he exhorted the Germans to a new crusade against the Turks.