large and heavy;—of the colour of rusty iron;—smooth, and hard;—and of a sulphureous smell:—and which were observed to fall from a vehement whirlwind; that appeared (like that in Tuscany) as an atmosphere of fire.

Here I intended to have concluded all my observations. But a recent publication, which I knew not of, when these sheets were written, obliges me to add a few more pages.

In a very singular tract, published in 1794, at Riga, by Dr. Chladni, concerning the supposed origin of the mass of iron found by Dr. Pallas in Siberia; which the Tartars still affirm to be an holy thing, and, to have fallen from heaven; and concerning what have been supposed, by him, to be similar phænomena; some circumstances are also mentioned, which it would be an unjust omission not to take notice of shortly, on the present occasion.

With the author's hypothesis I do not presume to interfere; but surely his facts, which he affirms in support of his ideas, deserve much attention; and ought to be inserted, before I conclude these observations: and the rather, as they were adduced to maintain conclusions very different from these now offered to the consideration of the curious.

On the 21st of May, 1676, a fire ball was seen to come from Dalmatia,[HH] proceeding over the Adriatic sea; it passed obliquely over Italy; where an hissing noise was heard; it burst SSW from Leghorn, with a terrible report; and the pieces are said to have fallen into the sea, with the same sort of noise, as when red hot iron is quenched or extinguished in water. Its height was computed to be not less than thirty-eight Italian miles; and it is said to have moved with immense velocity. Its form was oblong, at least as the luminous appearance seemed in its passage.

Avicenna mentions, (Averrhoes, lib. 2do Meteor. cap. 2.) that he had seen at Cordova, in Spain, a sulphureous stone that had fallen from heaven.

In Spangenberg's Chron. Saxon, an account is found, that at Magdeburg, in A. D. 998, two great stones, fell down in a storm of thunder: one in the town itself; the other near the Elbe, in the open country.

The well known, and celebrated Cardan, in his book, De Varietate Rerum, lib. 14. cap. 72. tells us, that he himself, in the year 1510, had seen one hundred and twenty stones fall from heaven; among which one weighed one hundred and twenty; and another sixty pounds. That they were mostly of an iron colour, and very hard, and smelt of brimstone. He remarks, moreover, that about three o'clock, a great fire was to be seen in the heavens; and that about five o'clock the stones fell down with a rushing noise.

And Julius Scaliger (in his book De Subtilitate Exerc. p. 333.) affirms, that he had in his possession a piece of iron (as he calls it,) which had fallen from heaven in Savoy.

Wolf (in Lection. Memorab. Tom. II. p. 911.) mentions a great triangular stone, described by Sebastian Brandt, (which seems to have been the identical stone I have already mentioned as having been preserved in the church of Anxissem,) and which was said to have fallen from heaven, in the year 1493, at Ensisheim or Ensheim.

Muschenbroek,[II] speaking of the same stone, says, that the stone was blackish, weighed about 300lb. and that marks of fire were to be seen upon it; but apprehended (in which he seems to have been mistaken) that the date of the fall was 1630.

Chladni also mentions another instance (from Nic. Huknanfii Hist. Hungar. lib. 20. fol. 394.) of five stones, said to have fallen from heaven at Miscoz, in Transylvania, in a terrible thunder storm and commotion of the air, which were as big as a man's head, very heavy, of a pale yellow, and iron, or rusty colour; and of a strong sulphureous smell; and that four of them were kept in the treasury room at Vienna.

He adds, (from John Binbard's Thuring. Chron. p. 193.) that on the 26th of July, 1581, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, a stone fell down in Thuringia, with a clap of thunder, which made the earth shake; at which time a small light cloud was to be seen, the sky being otherwise clear. It weighed 39lb.; was of a blue and brownish colour. It gave sparks, when struck with a flint, as steel does. It had sunk five quarters of an ell deep in the ground; so that the soil, at the time, was struck up to twice a man's height; and the stone itself was so hot, that no one could bear to touch it. It is said to have been afterwards carried to Dresden.

He adds, also, that in the 31st Essay of the Breslau Collections, p. 44, is found an account by Dr. Rost; that on the 22d of June, 1723, about two o'clock in the afternoon, in the country of Pleskowicz, some miles from Reichstadt, in Bohemia, a small cloud was seen, the sky being otherwise clear; whereupon, at one place twenty-five, at another eight, great and small stones fell down, with a loud report, and without any lightning being perceived. The stones appeared externally black, internally like a metallic ore, and smelt strongly of brimstone.

And I shall conclude all Chladni's remarkable facts, in addition to those which I had myself collected, before ever I heard of his curious book, with a short summary of what he calls one of the newest accounts of this kind, extracted from the Histoire de l'Académie des Sciences, 1769, p. 20.

It is an account of three masses, which fell down with thunder, in provinces very distant from one another; and which were sent to the Academy in 1769. They were sent from Maine, Artois, and Cotentin: and it is affirmed, that when they fell an hissing was heard; and that they were found hot. All three were like one another; all three were of the same colour, and nearly of the same grain; and small metallic and pyritical particles could be distinguished in them; and, externally, all three were covered with an hard ferruginous coat: and, on chemical investigation, they were found to contain iron, and sulphur.[JJ]

Considering, then, all these facts so positively affirmed, concerning these various, most curious phænomena:—the explosions;—the sparks;—the lights;—the hissing noises;—the stones seen to fall;—the stones dug up hot, and even smoking;—and some scorching, and even burning other bodies in their passage;—we cannot but also bring to remembrance, what Sir John Pringle affirmed to have been observed; concerning a fiery meteor, seen on Sunday, the 26th of November, 1758, in several parts of England and Scotland.[KK]

That the head, which appeared about half the diameter of the moon, was of a bright white, like iron when almost in a melting heat;[LL] the tail, which appeared about 8° in length, was of a duskish red, burst in the atmosphere, when the head was about 7° above