May, 28, 1677. Many stony masses, supposed to have conta,ined particles of copper, are said by Balduinus, in his Appendix to the Miscellanea aVaturie Cunosorum, for 1677, to have fallen hear Ermendorf, in Saxony.— January 12, 1683, a mass of stone or iron fell near Cas trovillari, in Calabria. Mercati.—Nlatch 3. 1683. A stone fell in Piedmont. Id.-1689.—Red dust fell at Venice, &c. Valisnieri —Jai). 3, 1697 In Soldani's catalogue, published in the 9th vol. of the Transactions of the Aca demy of Sciences at Siena, stones resembling those al ready described are said to have fallen at Pentolina, near Siena.—May 19, 1698. Scheuzer, in his -Vatural History of Switzerland, informs us that a black stone fell from the atmosphere, with various explosions, near the village of Wahring, in the canton of Berne, and that it was transmitted, with an account of the circumstan ces, to the public library at Berne. It is doubtful, however. if the stone preserved in that repository is the. same which fell.—June 7, 17u6, a stone, weighing 72 lb. is said to have fallen near Larissa, in Macedonia. It was observed to proceed from the north with a loud hissing, and enveloped in a small cloud, which explod ed with a tremendous noise discharging a stone, which had the appearance of iron dross and the smell of sul phur. Lucas.—May 5 and 6, 1711. Red rain at Orsio, in Sweden. Act. Liter. Suec. A gelatinous matter fell with a globe of fire, in the isle of Letby, in India. Bar chewitz.—April 6, 17 I 9, there fell into the Atlantic Ocean, in 45° Lat N. and 32'2° 45' Long. from Paris, a shower of sand, which lasted from ten o'clock in the evening till one o'clock of the afternoon of next day. It was preceded by a luminous meteor. The wind was then east south-east. The captain of a vessel, and all the crew, certified the fact to Father Feuillee, who pre sented a specimen of the sand to the Academy of Sci ences. It had the appearance of common, hut very fine sand. June 5, 1722, stones fell near Scheftlas, in Frei sengen. Meichelbeck —June 22, 1723 Dr. Rost (Bees law Collect) relates, that at two o'clock in the after noon, the weather being then calm, there was seen at Pleskowicz, some miles from Reichstadt, in Bohemia, a small cloud, from which several large and small stones were projected, under loud explosions but without any lightning. These stones, which were black on the out side had internally the appearance of metal, and exhal ed a strong sulphureous odour. Twenty-five of them were collected in one place, and seven or t ight in ano ther. This instance is likewise noted by Stepiing, de Pluvia Lapidea —July 22. 1727. Siones fell at Lilas chhz, in Bohemia. Sten/ing —1731. Fused metal fell at Lessay. Halley —August 18, 1738. Stones fell near Carpt lards. Castillon —Oct. 25,1740 S ones fell at Ras grad Gilb. An or 1741. A Iiirce stone lell, du ring winter, in Greenland. Egede.-1743 Stones fell at Liboschitz, in Bohemia Stepling.-1744. Red rain at San Pietro d' Arena, near G••oa. Richard —October 12, 1750 M. de Lalande, the celebrated astronomer, informs us that a loud noise was heard in Lower Normandy, and that a very ]urge mass of stone fell at Niort, in the vi cinity of Contanres.
May 26, 1751, at six o'clock in the evening, a re markable fire-hill was o')served near Hraschina, in the district of Agram, in Upper Sclavonia. According to Mr. Stutz, an intelligent naturalist, attached to the Im perial Cabinet of Vienna, this meteor burst asunder into two parts, exhibiting the appearance of twisted chains of fire, accompanied with smoke, rushing down with a dreadful explosion. and with such force as to shake the earth. The larger fragment, which weighed 71 lb. sunk to the depth of three fathoms, and made a breach of ovo feet, round which the soil was greenish, and seemed to be scorched with fire. The either, of only 16 lb. weight, fell in a meadow at 2000 paces from the first, and made an opening of four feet wide. The largest, which consists of native iron, and presents on its surface the most evident marks of fire, is preserved in the Imperial Cabinet of Natural Curiosities at Vien n.., with an offitial attestation from the consistory of the
bishopric of Agram, who interrogated several eye-wit nesses A great many people in that part of the coun try heard the explosion, and likewise saw some fiery body fall from the sky, though, on account of the dis tance, they could not determine the precise spot. Dr. Chladni and Dr. Noehden mention, that they saw the larger mass in the Vienna museum ; and the latter re marks, that it is not smooth and even on the outside, but rough, with depressions and protuberances, and des titute of the vitreous particles observable in the cavi ties of the Siberian iron. Klaproth's analysis gave of native iron 96.5, and of nickel 3.5—a composition nearly identical with the specimen of native iron brought by Humboldt from the province of Durango, in Mexico.
January 1753. A stone fell at Eichstadt, in Germany. Cavallo.—July 3 1753. Four stones, one of which weighed 13 lb fell at Strkow, near Tabor, at eight o'clock in the evening, when the air was tranquil, and the sky little shaded with clouds. Their fall was pre ceded by three loud and prolonged peals, like the dis charge of artillery The people in the fields fled for terror to their houses or climbed up into the trees ; and a shepherd, who applied his hand to one of the stones after it had fallen, felt it very sensibly heated. A fragment of one of them n as distinctly labelled in the Bornian collection, with the additional annotation, Qnte fragments 3tio Julii, 1753. inter tonitrua, e cal° pluiNse creduliores yuidam asserunt. The expression of creduliores quidam, may be alleged to invalidate the purport of the label, yet it deserves to be remarked, that, in regard to the present subject of our inquiry, what was formerly accounted. the credulity of the vul gar, may now, on several occazions at least, he construed into probability, if not into matter of fact, that Stepling reported the phenomenon only ft.; year after it is stated to have taken place . and that the late lion. Charles Gre ville, who procured the identical specimen from the Bornian collection. and Mr. Howard, found it to coincide in composition with other atmospheric stones ; for its analysis gave, Its specific gravity is 4.28. Another specimen is depo sited in the Imp --jai C minet of Vienna S..ptemb.•r, 1753. W.- have next to direct our at tention to another report of Al. de Lalande, inserted in the Historical ./Ilinanack of Bresse, for 1756. About one o'clock, P. M. when the weather was very hot, and very serene, without any visible trace of a cloud, a very loud noise, like the discharge of two or three cannons, was heard within the circumference of six leagues, but for a very short duration. This noise was loudest in the neighbourhood of Pont-de-Vesic ; and at Liponas, a village three from the last mentioned place, it was even accompanied by a hissing like that of a cracker. On the same evening there were found two blackish masses, of a form nearly circular, but very un even, which had fallen, the one at Liponas, and the other at Pin, into ploughed ground, and sunk, by their own weight, to half a foot beneath the surface. One of them weighed about 20 lb. and a fragment of the other weighing 11i lb. was preserved in the cabinet of M. Varenne de Beost, at Dijon. The basis of these masses resembled a greyish trap, and was very refrac tory ; and through the substance of the stone, and es pecially in its fissures, were disseminated some ferrugi nous particles in grains, filaments, or minute nodules. This iron, when subjected to a red heat, became obe dient to the magnet. The hiack coating on the surface M. de Lalande ascribed to fusion, induced by violent heat.. These circumstances, though slightly noticed, are strictly conformable to the history of more recent cases, which remain to be detailed.