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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have
+Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times
+
+Author: Edward King
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2009 [EBook #29281]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS CONCERNING STONES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ REMARKS
+ CONCERNING
+ STONES
+ SAID TO HAVE FALLEN FROM THE CLOUDS, BOTH
+ IN THESE DAYS,
+ AND IN ANTIENT TIMES.
+
+ BY
+ EDWARD KING, ESQ. F. R. S. AND F. A. S.
+
+
+    Res ubi plurimum proficere, et valere possunt, collocari debent.
+                                                      Cicero de Orat. 37.
+
+
+ LONDON:
+ PRINTED FOR G. NICOL, BOOKSELLER TO HIS MAJESTY,
+ PALL-MALL.
+ 1796.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: F.1.  F.3.  F.2.]
+
+
+
+
+  _An Attempt to account for the Production of a Shower of Stones,
+  that fell in Tuscany, on the 16th of June, 1794; and to shew that
+  there are Traces of similar Events having taken place, in the
+  highest Ages of Antiquity. In the course of which Detail is also
+  inserted, an Account of an extraordinary Hail-stone, that fell, with
+  many others, in Cornwall, on the 20th of October, 1791._
+
+
+Having received this last winter, from Sir Charles Blagden, some very
+curious _manuscript_ accounts, concerning a surprising shower of stones;
+which is said, on the testimony of several persons, to have fallen in
+Tuscany, on the 16th of June, 1794;--and having also perused, with much
+attention, a very interesting pamphlet, written in Italian, by _Abbate
+Ambrose Soldani_, Professor of mathematics, in the University of Siena,
+containing an extraordinary and full detail of such facts as could be
+collected relating to this shower; the whole has appeared to me to
+afford such an ample field for philosophical contemplation, and also for
+the illustration of antient historic facts; that (leaving the whole to
+rest upon such testimony as the learned Professor has already collected
+together; and to be supported by such further corroboration, as I am
+informed is likely _soon_ to arrive in England,) I cannot but think it
+doing some service to the cause of literature, and science, to give to
+the world, in the earliest instance, a short abridgement of the
+substance of the whole of the information; expressed in the most concise
+and plainest language, in which it is possible for me to convey a full
+and exact idea of the phænomenon.
+
+It may be of some use, and afford satisfaction to several curious
+persons, to find the whole here compressed in so small a compass.
+
+And, as I shall add my own conclusions without reserve; because the
+whole of the phænomenon tends greatly to confirm some ideas which I had
+previously been led to form, many years ago, concerning the
+consolidation of certain species of stone; it may open a door for
+further curious investigation.
+
+And it may at least amuse, if not instruct; whilst I add a short detail
+of uncommon facts, recorded in antient history, and tending to shew
+clearly, that we are not without precedents of _similar events_ having
+happened, in the early ages of antiquity.
+
+On the 16th of June, 1794, a tremendous cloud was seen in Tuscany, near
+Siena, and Radacofani; coming from the north, about seven o'clock in the
+evening;--sending forth sparks, like rockets;--throwing out smoke like a
+furnace;--rendering violent explosions, and blasts, more like those of
+cannon, and of numerous muskets, than like thunder;--and casting down to
+the ground hot stones:--whilst the lightning that issued from the cloud
+was remarkably red; and moved with _less_ velocity than usual.
+
+The cloud appeared of different shapes; to persons in different
+situations; and remained suspended a long time: but every where was
+plainly seen to be burning, and smoking like a furnace.
+
+And its original height, from a variety of circumstances put together,
+seems to have been much above the common region of the clouds.
+
+The testimony, concerning the falling of the stones from it, appears to
+be almost unquestionable:--and is, evidently, from different persons,
+who had no communication with each other.
+
+For first; the fall of four stones is precisely ascertained: one of
+which was of an irregular figure, with a point like that of a
+diamond;--weighed five pounds and an half;--and had a vitriolic
+smell.--And another weighed three pounds and an half;--was black on the
+outside, as if from smoke;--and, internally, seemed composed of matter
+of the colour of ashes;--in which were perceived small spots of metals,
+of gold and silver.
+
+And, besides these, Professor Soldani of Siena, was shewn about fifteen
+others: the surfaces of which were glazed black, like a sort of
+varnish;--resisted acids;--and were too hard to be scratched with the
+point of a penknife.
+
+Signior _Andrew Montauli_, who saw the cloud, as he was travelling,
+described it as appearing much above the common region of the clouds;
+and as being clearly discerned to be on fire;--and becoming white, by
+degrees; not only where it had a communication, by a sort of stream of
+smoke and lightning, with a neighbouring similar cloud: but also, at
+last, in two-third parts of its whole mass, which was originally black.
+And yet he took notice, that it was not affected by the rays of the sun,
+though they shone full on its lower parts.--And he could discern as it
+were the bason of a fiery furnace, in the cloud, having a whirling
+motion.
+
+This curious observer gives an account also, of a stone, which he was
+assured fell from the cloud, at the feet of a farmer; and was dug out of
+the ground, into which it had penetrated.--And he says, that it was
+about five inches long, and four broad; nearly square; and polished:
+black on the surface, as if smoked; but within, like a sort of
+sand-stone, with various small particles of iron, and bright metallic
+stars.
+
+Other stones are described by him; which were said to have fallen at the
+same time: were triangular; and terminated in a sort of (pyramidal) or
+conical figure.--And others were so small as to weigh not more than an
+ounce.
+
+Professor Soldani saw another stone, said to have fallen from the cloud,
+which had the figure of a parallelopiped, blunted at the angles; and was
+as it were varnished, on the outside, with a black crust; and quite
+unlike any stones whatever of the soil of the country where it had
+fallen.
+
+Two ladies being at _Cozone_, about 20 miles from _Siena_, saw a number
+of stones fall, with a great noise, in a neighbouring meadow: one of
+which, being soon after taken up by a young woman, burnt her hand:
+another burnt a countryman's hat: and a third was said to strike off the
+branch of a mulberry tree; and to cause the tree to wither.
+
+Another stone, of about two ounces weight, fell near a girl watching
+sheep; a young person, whose veracity it is said could not be
+doubted.--This stone, the Professor tells us, is also a parallelopiped,
+with the angles rounded; and its internal substance is like that of the
+others; only with more metallic spots; especially when viewed with a
+magnifying glass: and the black external crust appears to be minutely
+crystallized.
+
+Many others, of a similar kind, were in the possession of different
+persons at Siena.
+
+And besides the falling of these from the cloud, there is described to
+have been a fall of sand; seen by keepers of cattle near _Cozone_,
+together with the falling of what appeared like squibs; and which proved
+afterwards to be stones, of the sort just described, weighing two or
+three ounces:--and some only a quarter of an ounce.
+
+Amongst other stones that fell; was one weighing two pounds, and two
+ounces; which was also an oblong parallelopiped, with blunted angles,
+(as they are called, but which I think meant plainly prismatical
+terminations, and are said to have been about an inch in height;) and
+this was most remarkable for having, a small circle, or sort of belt
+round it, in one part; wherein the black crust appeared more smooth; and
+shining like glass; as if that part had suffered a greater degree of
+heat than the rest.
+
+Another, also, was no less remarkable, for having many rounded cavities
+on its surface: as if the stone had been struck with small balls, whilst
+it was forming; and before it was hardened; which left their
+impressions.--And some appearances, of the same kind, were found on one
+of the four surfaces of another stone, in the possession of Soldani.
+
+On minute examination, the Professor found the stones were composed of
+blackish _crystals_, of different kinds; with metallic or pyritical
+spots, all united together by a kind of consolidated ashes.--And, on
+polishing them, they appeared to have a ground of a dark ash colour;
+intermixed with cubical blackish crystals, and shining pyritical specks,
+of a silver and gold colour.
+
+The conclusion which Professor Soldani evidently forms, is; _that the
+stones were generated in the air, by a combination of mineral
+substances, which had risen somewhere or other_, AS EXHALATIONS, _from
+the earth_: but, as he seems to think, _not from_ Vesuvius.
+
+The names of many persons, besides those already referred to, are
+mentioned; who were eye witnesses to the fall of the stones. And several
+_depositions_ were made, _in a regular juridical manner_, to ascertain
+the truth of the facts.
+
+The space of ground, within which the stones fell, was from three to
+four miles.
+
+The falling of them, was _the very day after_ the great eruption of
+Vesuvius.
+
+And the distance of the place, from Vesuvius, could not be less than two
+hundred miles, and seems to have been more.
+
+Vesuvius is situated _to the south_ of the spot: and the cloud came
+_from the north_; about thirteen, or at most eighteen hours, after the
+eruption.
+
+Now, putting all these circumstances together, I cannot but venture to
+form a conclusion, somewhat different from Professor Soldani's; though
+perfectly agreeing with his general principles.
+
+From a course of observations, and inquiries, which I have been led to
+pursue, for a great many years: tending to elucidate the history of
+extraneous fossils, and of the deluge; I have long been convinced, that
+stones in general, and strata of rocks, of all kinds, have been formed
+by _two_ very different operations of those elements, which the wisdom,
+and omnipotent hand of God, has ordained, and created.
+
+The one, by means of fire:--and the other, by means of water.
+
+And, of each sort, there are two subdivisions.
+
+Of the stones, and rocks, formed by fire;--there are some, (besides
+lavas,) whose component parts, having been previously fused, and in a
+melted state, did merely cool, and harden _gradually_.
+
+And there are others; whose component parts, having been fused, and in a
+melted state, and having so become completely liquid; did instantly, by
+the operation of the powers of _attraction_, become crystallized.
+
+And, in like manner; of stones, and of strata of rocks, formed by means
+of water;--there are some, which having had their component parts
+brought together, in a fluid state; did then merely become gradually
+settled; and by the power of attraction, and the mixture of crystalline
+particles, were hardened by degrees.
+
+And there are others: which, having had their component parts, in like
+manner, brought together by water, did yet, on account of the peculiar
+nature, and more powerful _attraction_ of those parts, _instantly_
+crystallize.
+
+And both of stones, and of strata of rocks, formed by fire; and of
+stones, and of strata of rocks formed by means of water; there are some
+such, as have been slowly consolidated by the first kind of operation;
+namely by the gradual cooling or settling of the substances; which yet
+do contain imbedded in them, crystals formed by the latter kind of
+operation.
+
+Instances of which, we seem to have, in some granites, on the one
+hand;--and in some sorts of limestones on the other.
+
+To this I must add also; that there appear further, to have been some
+stones formed _by a sort of precipitation_: much in the same manner as
+_Grew_ describes[A] the kernels, and stones of fruit to have been
+hardened.
+
+And I have met with many instances, wherein it appears unquestionably,
+that all these kind of processes in nature are going on continually: and
+that extraneous substances are actually inclosed, and _continually
+inclosing_, which could not be _antediluvian_; but must have been
+recent.
+
+To these short premises, I must beg leave to add; that in two papers
+formerly printed in the Philosophical Transactions,[B] I endeavoured, by
+some very remarkable instances, to prove, that iron, wherever it comes
+into combination with any substances that are tending to consolidation,
+_hastens the process exceedingly_;--and also renders the hardness of the
+body much greater.
+
+And I have also endeavoured, elsewhere,[C] to shew, in consequence of
+conclusions deduced from experiments of the most unquestionable
+authority, that _air_, in its various shapes and modifications, is
+indeed _itself_ the great consolidating fluid, out of which solid bodies
+are composed; and by means of which the various attractions take place,
+which form all the hard bodies, and visible substances upon earth.
+
+From all these premises then, it was impossible for me not to be led to
+conclude; that we have, in this august phænomenon of the fall of stones
+from the clouds, in Tuscany, an obvious proof, as it were before our
+eyes, of the combined operation of those very powers, and processes, to
+which I have been alluding.
+
+It is well known; that pyrites, which are composed of iron, and
+sulphur, and other adventitious matter, when laid in heaps, and
+moistened, will take fire.
+
+It is also well known, that a mixture of pyrites of almost any kind,
+beaten small, and mixed with iron filings and water, when buried in the
+ground will take fire; and produce a sort of artificial volcano. And,
+surely then, wherever a vast quantity of such kind of matter should at
+any time become mixed together, as flying dust, or ashes; and be by any
+means condensed together, or compressed, the same effect might be
+produced, even in the atmosphere and air.
+
+Instead, therefore, of having recourse to the supposition, of the cloud
+in Tuscany having been produced by any other kind of exhalations from
+the earth; we may venture to believe, that an immense cloud of ashes,
+mixed with pyritical dust, and with numerous particles of iron, having
+been projected from Vesuvius to a most prodigious height, became
+afterwards condensed in its descent;--took fire, both of itself, as well
+as by means of the electric fluid it contained;--produced many
+explosions;--melted the pyritical, and metallic, and argillaceous
+particles, of which the ashes were composed;--and, by this means, had a
+sudden crystallization, and consolidation of those particles taken
+place, which formed the stones of various sizes, that fell to the
+ground: _but did not harden the clayey ashes so rapidly as the metallic
+particles crystallized_; and, therefore, gave an opportunity for
+_impressions to be made_ on the surfaces of some of the stones, as they
+fell, by means of the impinging of the others.
+
+Nor does it appear to me, to be any solid objection to this conclusion,
+either that Vesuvius was so far distant; or that the cloud came from the
+north.
+
+For, if we examine Sir William Hamilton's account of the very eruption
+in question,[D] we shall find, that he had reason to conclude, that the
+_pine-like_ cloud of ashes projected from Vesuvius, at one part of the
+time during this eruption, was twenty-five or thirty miles in height;
+and, if to this conclusion we add, not only that some ashes actually
+were carried to a greater distance than _two hundred miles_;[E] but
+that, when any substance is at a vast height in the atmosphere, a very
+small variation of the direction of its course, causes a most prodigious
+variation in the extent of the range of ground where it shall fall;
+(just as the least variation in the angle, at the vertex of an
+_isosceles_ triangle, causes a very great alteration in the extent of
+its base;) we may easily perceive, not only the possibility, but the
+probability, that the ashes in question, projected to so vast an height,
+were first carried even beyond _Siena_ in Tuscany, northward; and then
+brought back, by a contrary current of wind, in the direction in which
+they fell.
+
+Sir William Hamilton himself formed somewhat this sort of conclusion, on
+receiving the first intimation of this shower of stones from the Earl of
+Bristol.[F]
+
+I cannot therefore but allow my own conclusion to carry conviction with
+it to my own mind; and to send it forth into the world; as a ground, at
+least, for speculation, and reflection, to the minds of others.
+
+That ashes, and sand, and pyritical and sulphureous dust, mixed with
+metallic particles from volcanoes; fit for the instantaneous
+crystallization, and consolidation of such bodies as we have been
+describing, are often actually floating in the atmosphere, at incredible
+distances from volcanoes, and more frequently than the world are at all
+aware of, is manifest from several well attested facts.
+
+On the 26th of December, 1631, Captain _Badily_, being in the Gulph of
+Volo, in the Archipelago, riding at anchor, about ten o'clock at night,
+it began to rain _sand_ and _ashes_; and continued to do so till two
+o'clock the next morning. The ashes lay about two inches thick on the
+deck: so that they cast them overboard just as they had done snow the
+day before. There was no wind stirring, when the ashes fell: and yet
+this extraordinary shower was not confined merely to the place where
+_Badily's_ ship was;[G] but, as it appeared afterwards, was extended so
+widely to other parts, that ships coming from _St. John d'Acre_ to that
+port, being at the distance of _one hundred leagues_ from thence, were
+covered with the same sort of ashes. And no possible account could be
+given of them, except that they might come from Vesuvius.
+
+On the 23d of October, 1755, a ship belonging to a merchant of Leith,
+bound for Charles Town, in Carolina, being betwixt Shetland and Iceland,
+and about twenty-five leagues distant from the former, and therefore
+about three hundred miles from the latter, a shower of dust fell in the
+night upon the decks.[H]
+
+In October, 1762, at _Detroit_, in America, was a most surprising
+darkness, from day-break till four in the afternoon, during which time
+some rain falling, brought down, with the drops, sulphur and dirt;
+which rendered white paper black, and when burned fizzed like wet
+gunpowder:[I] and whence such matter could originally be brought,
+appeared to be past all conjecture, unless it came so far off as from
+the volcano in Guadaloupe.
+
+Condamine says, the ashes of the volcano of _Sangay_, in South America,
+sometimes pass over the provinces of Maca, and Quito; and are even
+carried as far as Guayaquil.[J]
+
+And Hooke says,[K] that on occasion of a great explosion from a volcano,
+in the island of Ternata, in the East Indies, there followed so great a
+darkness, that the inhabitants could not see each other the next day:
+and he justly leads us to infer what an immense quantity of ashes must,
+by this means, have been showered down somewhere on the sea; because at
+_Mindanao_, an hundred miles off, all the land was covered with ashes a
+foot thick.
+
+And now, I must add; that such kind of _falling of stones from the
+clouds_, as has been described to have happened in Tuscany, seems to
+have happened also in very remote ages, of which we are not without
+sufficient testimony; and such as well deserves to be allowed and
+considered, on the present occasion; although the knowledge of the facts
+was, at first, in days of ignorance and gross darkness, soon perverted
+to the very worst purposes.
+
+In the Acts of the holy Apostles, we read, that the chief magistrate, at
+_Ephesus_, begun his harangue to the people, by saying, "Ye men of
+Ephesus, _what man is there that knoweth not how that the City of the
+Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the_ IMAGE
+_which fell down from Jupiter_?" (or rather, as the original Greek has
+it) "_of_ THAT _which fell down from Jupiter_?" And the learned
+_Greaves_ leads us to conclude this image of Diana to have been nothing
+but _a conical, or pyramidal stone_, that fell from the clouds. For he
+tells us,[L] on unquestionable authorities, that many others of the
+images of heathen deities were merely such.
+
+Herodian expressly declares,[M] that the Phoenicians had no statue of
+the sun, polished by hand, to express an image; but only had a certain
+_great stone, circular below, and ending with a sharpness above, in the
+figure of a cone, of black colour. And they report it to have fallen
+from heaven, and to be the image of the sun_.
+
+So Tacitus says,[N] that at Cyprus, _the image of Venus was not of human
+shape; but a figure rising continually round, from a larger bottom to a
+small top, in conical fashion_. And it is to be remarked, that _Maximus
+Tyrius_ (who perhaps was a more accurate mathematician,) says, the stone
+was _pyramidal_.
+
+And in Corinth, we are told by _Pausanias_,[O] that the images both of
+_Jupiter Melichius_, and of _Diana_, were made (if made at all by hand)
+with little or no art. The former being represented by a pyramid, the
+latter by a column.
+
+_Clemens Alexandrinus_ was so well acquainted with these facts, that he
+even concludes[P] the worship of such stones to have been the first, and
+earliest idolatry, in the world.
+
+It is hard to conceive how mankind should ever have been led to so
+accursed an abomination, as the worship of stocks, and stones, at all:
+but, as far as any thing so horrid is to be accounted for, there is no
+way so likely of rendering a possible account; as that of concluding,
+that some of these pyramidal stones, at least, like the image of
+_Diana_, actually did fall, in the earliest ages, from the clouds; in
+the same manner as these pyramidal stones fell, in 1794, in Tuscany.
+
+_Plutarch_, it is well known, mentions[Q] a stone which formerly fell
+from the clouds, in _Thrace_, and which _Anaxagoras_ fancied[R] to have
+fallen from the sun.
+
+And it is very remarkable, that the old writer, from whom Plutarch had
+his account, described the cloud, from which this stone was said to
+fall, in a manner (if we only make some allowance for a little
+exaggeration in barbarous ages,) very similar to _Soldani's_ account of
+the cloud in Tuscany.--It hovered about for a long time; seemed to throw
+out splinters, which flew about, like wandering stars, before they fell;
+and at last it cast down to the earth a stone of extraordinary size.
+
+Pliny,[S] who tells us that not only the remembrance of this event, but
+that the stone itself was preserved to his days, says, it was of a dark
+burnt colour. And though he does indeed speak of it as being of an
+extravagant weight and size, in which circumstance perhaps he was
+misled: yet he mentions _another_ of a moderate size, which fell in
+_Abydos_, and was become an object of idolatrous worship in that place;
+as was still _another_, of the same sort, at _Potidæa_.
+
+_Livy_, who like _Herodotus_, has been oftentimes censured as too
+credulous, and as a relater of falsehoods, for preserving traditions of
+_an extraordinary kind_; which, after all, in ages of more enlarged
+information, have proved to have been founded in truth; describes[T] a
+fall of stones to have happened on mount _Alba_, during the reign of
+_Tullus Hostilius_, (that is about 652 years before the Christian æra),
+in words that exactly convey an idea of just such a phænomenon, as this
+which has so lately been observed in Tuscany.
+
+He says, the senate were told, that _lapidibus pluisse_, it had rained
+stones. And, when they doubted of the fact; and sent to inquire; they
+were assured that stones had actually fallen; and had fallen just as
+hail does, which is concreted in a storm.[U]
+
+He mentions also shortly another shower of stones,[V] A. C. 202, and
+still a third,[W] which must have happened about the year 194 before the
+Christian æra.
+
+Such are the records of antient history. And in Holy Writ also a
+remembrance of similar events is preserved.
+
+For when the royal Psalmist says,[X] "_The Lord also thundered out of
+heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder: hail-stones_, AND COALS OF
+FIRE,"--the latter expression, in consistency with common sense, and
+conformably to the right meaning of language, cannot but allude to some
+_such_ phænomenon as we have been describing. And especially, as in the
+cautious translation of the seventy, a Greek word is used, which
+decidedly means _real hard substances made red hot_; and not mere
+appearances of fire or flame.
+
+Whilst therefore, with the same sacred writer,[Y] we should be led to
+consider all these powerful operations, as the works of God; _Who
+casteth forth his ice like morsels_;[Z] and should be led to consider
+"_fire and hail, snow and vapours, wind and storm as fulfilling his
+word_;"[AA] we should also be led to perceive, that the objections to
+Holy Writ, founded on a supposed _impossibility_ of the truth of what is
+written in the book of _Joshua_,[BB] concerning the stones that fell
+from heaven, on the army of the Canaanites; are only founded in
+ignorance, and error.
+
+And much more should we be led to do so; when, to these observations,
+and testimonies, concerning showers of hot burning stones, is added the
+consideration; that within the short period of our own lives, incredibly
+large _real hail-stones_, formed of consolidated ice;--_of ice
+consolidated in the atmosphere_, have fallen both in France, and in
+England.
+
+In France, on the 13th of July in the year 1788;--of which it is well
+known there has been a printed account: and concerning which it is said,
+and has been confirmed, on good authority, that some of the stones
+weighed three pounds: whilst others have been said to weigh even five
+pounds.
+
+And in England, on the 20th of October, 1791, in Cornwall.
+
+Of one of the hail-stones of this latter, minor storm, I have had an
+opportunity of obtaining, by the favour of a friend, an exact model in
+glass; whereof I now add an engraving.
+
+This stone fell, with thousands of others of the same kind, near
+_Menabilly_, the seat of _Philip Rashleigh_, Esq.; well known for his
+science, and attention to whatever is curious; who having great copper
+works, and many ingenious miners, and workmen, on his estate, and
+directly under his eye; caused it to be instantly picked up: and having
+then, himself, first traced both its top, and bottom, upon paper; and
+having measured its thickness in every part, with a pair of compasses;
+caused a very exact mould to be formed: and afterwards, in that mould,
+had this model cast in glass: wherein, also, the appearances of the
+imbedded, common, small, roundish hail-stones, are seen transparently;
+just as they appeared in the great hail-stone itself originally.
+
+Fig. 1, is a representation of the flat bottom of the stone.
+
+Fig. 2, is a representation of the top of the stone.
+
+And fig. 3, shews the whole solid appearance sideways.
+
+Whilst Mr. Rashleigh was taking the measures, it melted so fast, that he
+could not, in the end, take the _exact weight_, as he fully intended to
+have done. But as this model in glass weighs exactly 1 ounce, 16
+pennyweights, 23 grains, we may fairly conclude, that the hail-stone
+itself weighed much above half an ounce.
+
+For it is well known, that the specific gravity of common glass, of
+which sort this model is made, is to that of water, as 2.620 to 1.000.
+And the specific gravity of common water, is to ice, as 8 to 7.[CC]--And
+computing according to this standard, I make the exact weight of the
+hail-stone to have been 295 grains.
+
+From the singular manner in which the small, prior, common hail-stones
+appear to have been imbedded in this larger one, whilst they were
+falling to the earth; there is reason to be convinced, that it was
+formed in the atmosphere, by a sudden extraordinary congelation _almost
+instantaneously_, out of rain suddenly condensed, which was mingled with
+the common hail.
+
+And it was very remarkable, that its dissolution, and melting, also, was
+much more rapid than that of the common small white hail-stones: as was
+the case, in like manner, with the other numerous large ones.
+
+Perhaps it ought to be here added:--that on the 18th of May, in the year
+1680, some hail-stones are recorded to have fallen in London, near
+_Gresham college_, which were seen and examined by the celebrated _Dr.
+Hooke_; and were some of them not less than two inches over, and others
+three inches.
+
+This which fell in Cornwall was only about one inch and three quarters
+long; an inch, or in some parts an inch and a quarter broad; and between
+half an inch, and three quarters of an inch thick. And its weight was
+near an ounce.--How much more tremendous then were those others, that
+have been described as having fallen in France?--the accounts of some of
+them may very probably have been exaggerated: but the reality was
+nevertheless as wonderful, surely, as any thing related concerning the
+ages of antiquity.
+
+A proneness to credulity is ever blameable. And it is very possible,
+that sometimes, in a very wonderful narration, a jest may be intended to
+be palmed upon the world, instead of any elucidation of truth.--But
+facts, _positively affirmed_, should be hearkened to with patience: and,
+at least, so far recorded, as to give an opportunity of verifying
+whether similar events do afterwards happen; and of comparing such
+events one with another.
+
+To what has been said, therefore, concerning the fall of stones in
+Tuscany, and concerning these strange showers of hail, in France, and in
+England, it might perhaps too justly be deemed an unwarrantable
+omission, on this occasion, not to mention the very strange fact that
+is affirmed to have happened the last year, near _the Wold Cottage_ in
+Yorkshire.
+
+I leave the fact to rest on the support of the testimonies referred to
+in the printed paper, which is in so many persons' hands; and that is
+given to those who have the curiosity to examine the stone itself, now
+exhibiting in London;--and shall only relate the substance of the
+account shortly, as it is given to us.
+
+In the afternoon of the 13th of December, 1795, near the Wold Cottage,
+noises were heard in the air, by various persons, like the report of a
+pistol; or of guns at a distance at sea; though there was neither any
+thunder or lightning at the time:--two distinct concussions of the earth
+were said to be perceived:--and an hissing noise, was also affirmed to
+be heard by other persons, as of something passing through the air;--and
+a labouring man plainly saw (as we are told) that something was so
+passing; and beheld a stone, as it seemed, at last, (about ten yards, or
+thirty feet, distant from the ground) descending, and striking into the
+ground, which flew up all about him: and in falling, sparks of fire,
+seemed to fly from it.
+
+Afterwards he went to the place, in company with others; who had
+witnessed part of the phænomena, and dug the stone up from the place,
+where it was buried about twenty-one inches deep.
+
+It smelt, (as it is said,) very strongly of sulphur, when it was dug up:
+and was even warm, and smoked:--it was found to be thirty inches in
+length, and twenty-eight and a half inches in breadth. And it weighed
+fifty-six pounds.
+
+Such is the account.--I affirm nothing.--Neither do I pretend either
+absolutely to believe: or to disbelieve.--I have not an opportunity to
+examine the whole of the evidence.--But it may be examined: and so I
+leave it to be.
+
+This, however, I will say: that _first_ I saw a fragment of this stone;
+which had come into the hands of Sir Charles Blagden, from the Duke of
+Leeds: and afterwards I saw the stone itself.--That it plainly had a
+dark, black crust; with several concave impressions on the outside,
+which must have been made before it was quite hardened; just like what
+is related concerning the crusts of those stones that fell in
+Italy.--That its substance was not _properly_ of a _granite kind_, as
+described in the printed paper; but a sort of _grit stone_; composed
+(somewhat like the stones said to have fallen in Italy) of sand and
+ashes.--That it contained very many particles, obviously of the
+appearance of gold, and silver, and iron; (or rather more truly of
+_pyrites_).--That there were also several small rusty specks; probably
+from decomposed pyrites;--and some striated marks;--that it does not
+effervesce with acids;--and that, as far as I have ever seen, or known,
+or have been able to obtain any information, no _such_ stone has ever
+been found, before this time, in Yorkshire; or in any part of England.
+Nor can I easily conceive that such a species of stone could be formed,
+by art, to impose upon the public.
+
+Whether, therefore, it might, or might not, possibly be the effect of
+ashes flung out from _Heckla_, and wafted to England; like those flung
+out from Vesuvius, and (as I am disposed to believe) wafted to Tuscany,
+I have nothing to affirm.
+
+I wish to be understood to preserve mere records, the full authority for
+which, deserves to be investigated more and more.
+
+Having, nevertheless, gone so far as to say thus much; I ought to add,
+that the memorial of such sort of large stones having fallen from the
+clouds is still preserved also in Germany.
+
+For one is recorded to have fallen in _Alsace_, in the midst of a storm
+of hail, November 29th, A. D. 1630;[DD] which is said to be preserved in
+the great church of _Anxissem_: and to be like a large dark sort of
+flint-stone; having its surface operated upon by fire: and to be of very
+many pounds weight.
+
+And another is said to be still preserved at Vienna.
+
+This last is described by _Abbé Stutz_, Assistant in the Imperial
+cabinet of curiosities at Vienna, in a book printed in German, at
+_Leipsyc_, in 1790: entitled _Bergbaukimde_ (or _the Science of
+Mining_.)
+
+After describing two other stones, said to have fallen from the clouds:
+one in the _Eichstedt_ country in Germany; and another in the _Bechin_
+circle, in Bohemia, in July, 1753; concerning the _real_ falling of
+which he had expressed some doubts; he proceeds to describe the falling
+of two, (whereof this was one,) not far from _Agram_, the capital of
+_Croatia_, in Hungary; which caused him to change his opinion; and to
+believe, that the falling of such stones from heaven, was very possible.
+
+His words, fairly translated,[EE] in the beginning of his narrative,
+are, "These accounts put me in mind of a mass of iron, weighing
+seventy-one pounds, which was sent to the imperial collection of natural
+curiosities: about the origin of which _many mouths have been distorted
+with scoffing laughter_. If, in the _Eichstedt_ specimen, the effects of
+fire appear _tolerably_ evident; they are, in this, not to be
+mistaken.--Its surface is full of spherical impressions, like the mass
+of iron, which the celebrated _Pallas_ found on the Jenisei river;
+except that here the impressions are larger, and less deep; and it
+wants both the yellow glass, which fills up the hollows of the
+_Siberian_ iron; and the _sand stone_, which is found in the _Eichstedt_
+specimen; the whole mass being solid, compact, and black, like hammered
+iron."
+
+And his words in the end of the narrative are,
+
+"There is a great step from the disbelief of tales, to the finding out
+the true cause of a phænomenon which appears wonderful to us. And
+probably I should have committed the fault into which we so naturally
+fall, respecting things we cannot explain; and have rather denied the
+whole history, than have determined to believe any thing _so
+incredible_; if various new writings, on electricity, and thunder, had
+not fortunately, at that time come into my hands; concerning remarkable
+experiments of reviving _metallic calces_ by the electric spark.
+Lightning is an electrical stroke on a large scale.--If then the
+reduction of iron can be obtained, by the discharge of an electrical
+machine; why should not this be accomplished as well, and with much
+greater effect by the very powerful discharge of the lightning of the
+clouds?"
+
+The substance of the account of the fall of stones, in Hungary, as given
+by him, after the most accurate inquiries, is what I shall now add in
+the following abridged detail; and it was verified by _Wolfgang
+Kukulyewich, Spiritual vicar of Francis Baron Clobuschiczky, Bishop of
+Agram_, who caused seven eye witnesses to be examined, concerning the
+actual falling of these stones on the 26th of May, 1751;--which
+witnesses were ready to testify all they affirmed, upon oath,--and one
+of them was Mr. George Marsich, Curate, as we should call him, of the
+parish.
+
+According to their accounts; about six o'clock, in the afternoon of the
+day just mentioned, there was seen towards the east, a kind of fiery
+ball; which, after it had burst into two parts, with a great report,
+exceeding that of a cannon, fell from the sky, in the form, and
+appearance of _two chains_ entangled in one another:--and also with a
+loud noise, as of a great number of carriages rolled along. And after
+this a black smoke appeared; and a part of the ball seemed to fall in an
+arable field of one _Michael Koturnass_; on the fall of which to the
+ground a still greater noise was heard; and a shock perceived, something
+like an earthquake.
+
+This piece was afterwards soon dug out of the ground; which had been
+particularly noted to be plain and level, and ploughed just before; but
+where it was now found to have made a great fissure, or cleft, an ell
+wide, whilst it singed the earth on the sides.
+
+The other piece, which fell in a meadow, was also dug up; and weighed
+sixteen pounds.
+
+And it is fairly observed, that the unadorned manner in which the whole
+account from _Agram_ is written; the agreement of the different
+witnesses, who had no reason to accord in a lie; and the similarity of
+this history to that of the _Eichstedt_ stone; makes it at least very
+probable, that there was indeed something real, and worth notice, in the
+account.
+
+The _Eichstedt_ stone (somewhat like that said to have fallen so lately
+in Yorkshire) is described as having been composed of ash-grey sand
+stone, with fine grains intermixed all through it, partly of real native
+iron, and partly of yellowish brown ochre of iron: and as being about as
+hard as building stone.--It is said not to effervesce with acids, and
+evidently to consist of small particles of siliceous stone and iron.--It
+had also a solid malleable coat of native iron, as was supposed, quite
+free from sulphur, and about two lines thick; which quite covered its
+surface; resembling a blackish glazing. And the whole mass exhibited
+evident marks of having been exposed to fire.
+
+A plain testimony of the falling of this was affirmed to be, produced as
+follows; that a labourer, at a brick-kiln, in winter, when the earth was
+covered with snow, saw it fall down out of the air immediately after a
+violent clap of thunder;--and that he instantly ran up to take it out of
+the snow; but found he could not do so, on account of its heat; and was
+obliged therefore to wait, to let it cool. That it was about half a foot
+in diameter; and was entirely covered with a black coat like iron.[FF]
+
+And I must now add that there is a record;[GG] that stones, to the
+number of some hundreds, did once fall in the neighbourhood of a place
+called _Abdua_; which were very 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 the horizon, and
+disappeared; and in the room thereof were seen three bodies like stars,
+within the compass of a little more than three degrees from the head,
+which also kept descending with the head.
+
+That before this, in another place, near Ancram in Scotland, (where the
+same meteor was seen) one-third of the tail, towards the extremity,
+appeared _to break off_, and to separate into sparks, resembling
+stars.--That soon after this the body of the meteor had its light
+extinguished, with an explosion; but, as it seemed to the observer
+there, _the form of the entire figure of the body, quite black, was
+seen to go still forwards in the air_.[MM] By some persons, also, an
+hissing noise[NN] was apprehended to be heard.
+
+Whether this might, or might not be an ignited body, of the kind we have
+been describing, falling to the earth, deserves consideration. Sir John
+Pringle seems to have been convinced that it was really _a solid
+substance_; but fairly adds,[OO] that if such meteors had really ever
+fallen to the earth, there must have been, long ago, so strong evidence
+of the fact, as to leave no room to doubt.
+
+Perhaps, in the preceding accounts, we have such evidence, _now_ fairly
+collected together; at least in a certain degree.
+
+I take all the facts, just as I find them affirmed. I have preserved a
+faithful and an honest record.
+
+For the sake of possible philosophical use;--let the philosophical, and
+curious just preserve these facts in remembrance.
+
+For the sake of philological advantage;--let the discerning weigh, and
+judge. For (if such things be,) what has so often come to pass,
+according to what is commonly called _the usual course of nature_; may
+most undoubtedly, henceforth, without any hesitating doubts, be believed
+to have been brought to pass, on an extraordinary occasion, in a still
+more tremendous manner, by the immediate _fiat of the Almighty_.
+
+Let no man scoff; lest he drives away the means of real
+information.--And let all men _watch_, for the increase of science.--
+
+The wisdom and power of God are far above not only the first
+apprehensions, but even the highest ideas of man. And our truest wisdom,
+and best improvement of knowledge, consist in searching out, and in
+attending diligently, to what he has actually done: ever bearing in
+mind those words of the holy Psalmist.[PP]
+
+"_The works of The Lord are great: sought out of all them that have
+pleasure therein._
+
+"_The Lord hath so done his marvellous works, that they ought to be
+had in remembrance._"
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+Since these sheets were printed, I have received from Sir Charles
+Blagden, a present of one of the very small stones mentioned, p. 7, that
+are affirmed to have fallen in Tuscany; and which has very lately been
+brought carefully from Italy.
+
+Its figure plainly indicates, that in the instant of its formation,
+there was a strong effort towards crystallization. For it is an
+irregular quadrilateral pyramid;--whose base, an imperfect kind of
+square, has two of its adjoining sides about six-tenths of an inch long,
+each; and the other two, each about five-tenths: whilst two of the
+triangular sides of the pyramid, are about six-tenths, on every side of
+each triangle, all of which are a little curved: and the other two
+triangular sides, are only five-tenths on the sides where these two last
+join.
+
+Its black crust, or coating, is such as has been described in the
+preceding pages: and is also remarkable, for the appearance of a sort of
+minute chequer work, formed by very fine white lines on the black
+surface.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+[A] In his Anatomy of Plants, p. 41-184.
+
+[B] Vol. LXIII. p. 241--and Vol. LXIX. p. 35.
+
+[C] In the Morsels of Criticism, p. 103.
+
+[D] In the Philos. Trans. for 1795, p. 91, 92.
+
+[E] This is mentioned by Sir William Hamilton himself, p. 105.
+
+[F] See Philos. Trans. for 1795, p. 104, 105.
+
+[G] See Lowthorp's Abridgement of the Philos. Trans. Vol. II. p. 143.
+
+[H] Philos. Trans. Vol. XLIX. p. 510.
+
+[I] Philos. Trans. Vol. LIII. p. 54.
+
+[J] Condamine's Journal, p. 57.
+
+[K] In his Experiments, p. 35.
+
+[L] Pyramidographia, Vol. I. 89-91.
+
+[M] Lib. 5.
+
+[N] Lib. 2.
+
+[O] In his Corinthiaca.
+
+[P] Clem. Alex. lib. 1.--Stromatum.
+
+[Q] In Vita Lysandri.
+
+[R] Diogenes in Anaxag.
+
+[S] Historia Nat. lib. 2. cap. 59.
+
+[T] Lib. 1. Sec. 31.
+
+[U] Haud aliter quam quum grandinem venti glomeratam in terras agunt,
+crebri cecidere coelo lapides.
+
+[V] Lib. 30. Sec. 28.
+
+[W] Lib. 34. Sec. 45.
+
+[X] Psalm 18. v. 13.
+
+[Y] Psalm 148. v. 8.
+
+[Z] Psalm 147. v. 17.
+
+[AA] Psalm 148. v. 8.
+
+[BB] Joshua, ch. 10. v. 11.
+
+[CC] Hooke's Experiments, p. 134.
+
+[DD] Vide Gesner.--and Ans de Boot Hist. Lapidum.
+
+[EE] For which translation I am obliged to Sir Charles Blagden.
+
+[FF] This account, from Abbé _Stutz_, and the following from Dr.
+_Chladni_, I received, translated from the German, by the favour of Sir
+Charles Blagden.
+
+[GG] Vide Cardan _De Variet_, lib. 14. c. 72.
+
+[HH] An account of this stone is given by Dr. Halley in the
+Philosophical Trans. No. 341. And also there is an account of it by
+Montenari.
+
+[II] Essai de Physique, Tom. II. sect. 1557.
+
+[JJ] All these facts are to be found mentioned in Chladni's book; first
+at p. 8, and then from p. 34 to 37.
+
+[KK] See the full account in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LI.
+for 1759, p. 218, &c.
+
+[LL] This is according to the account sent by the Rev. Mr. Michell,
+Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, p. 223.
+
+[MM] Ib. p. 237, 265, 269.
+
+[NN] Ib. p. 265.
+
+[OO] Ib. p. 272.
+
+[PP] Psalm III. v. 2 and 4.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have
+Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King
+
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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have
+Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times
+
+Author: Edward King
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2009 [EBook #29281]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS CONCERNING STONES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
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+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2>REMARKS</h2>
+<h4 style="margin-top: -1em;">CONCERNING</h4>
+<h1 style="margin-top: -.75em;">STONES</h1>
+<h3 style="margin-top: -1em;">SAID TO HAVE FALLEN FROM THE CLOUDS, BOTH<br />
+IN THESE DAYS,<br />
+AND IN ANTIENT TIMES.</h3>
+
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3><small>BY</small><br />
+EDWARD KING, ESQ. F. R. S. AND F. A. S.</h3>
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="poem">
+Res ubi plurimum proficere, et valere possunt, collocari debent.<br />
+<span class="smcap" style="margin-left: 18em;">Cicero de Orat. 37.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3><span class="u">LONDON:</span></h3>
+<h4 style="margin-top: -.5em;">PRINTED FOR G. NICOL, BOOKSELLER TO HIS MAJESTY,<br />
+PALL-MALL.<br />
+1796.</h4>
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="image border2" style="width: 600px; height: 247px;">
+<a name="ifrontis" id="ifrontis"></a><img src="images/ifrontis.jpg" width="600" height="247" alt="F.1. F.3. F.2." title="" />
+<span class="captionl" style="margin-left: 5em;">F.1.</span><span class="captionr" style="margin-right: 5em;">F.2.</span>
+<span class="caption">F.3.</span>
+</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="blockquote"><p><i>An Attempt to account for the Production of a Shower of Stones,
+that fell in Tuscany, on the 16th of June, 1794; and to shew
+that there are Traces of similar Events having taken place,
+in the highest Ages of Antiquity. In the course of which Detail
+is also inserted, an Account of an extraordinary Hail-stone,
+that fell, with many others, in Cornwall, on the 20th of
+October, 1791.</i></p></div>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">H</span><span class="upper">aving</span> received this last winter, from Sir Charles Blagden,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+some very curious <i>manuscript</i> accounts, concerning a surprising
+shower of stones; which is said, on the testimony of
+several persons, to have fallen in Tuscany, on the 16th of
+June, 1794;&mdash;and having also perused, with much attention,
+a very interesting pamphlet, written in Italian, by <i>Abbate Ambrose
+Soldani</i>, Professor of mathematics, in the University of
+Siena, containing an extraordinary and full detail of such
+facts as could be collected relating to this shower; the whole
+has appeared to me to afford such an ample field for philosophical
+contemplation, and also for the illustration of antient
+historic facts; that (leaving the whole to rest upon such testimony
+as the learned Professor has already collected together;
+and to be supported by such further corroboration, as I am
+informed is likely <i>soon</i> to arrive in England,) I cannot but
+think it doing some service to the cause of literature, and
+science, to give to the world, in the earliest instance, a short<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+abridgement of the substance of the whole of the information;
+expressed in the most concise and plainest language, in which
+it is possible for me to convey a full and exact idea of the
+phænomenon.</p>
+
+<p>It may be of some use, and afford satisfaction to several curious
+persons, to find the whole here compressed in so small a
+compass.</p>
+
+<p>And, as I shall add my own conclusions without reserve;
+because the whole of the phænomenon tends greatly to confirm
+some ideas which I had previously been led to form, many
+years ago, concerning the consolidation of certain species of
+stone; it may open a door for further curious investigation.</p>
+
+<p>And it may at least amuse, if not instruct; whilst I add a
+short detail of uncommon facts, recorded in antient history,
+and tending to shew clearly, that we are not without precedents
+of <i>similar events</i> having happened, in the early ages of
+antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>On the 16th of June, 1794, a tremendous cloud was seen in
+Tuscany, near Siena, and Radacofani; coming from the north,
+about seven o'clock in the evening;&mdash;sending forth sparks,
+like rockets;&mdash;throwing out smoke like a furnace;&mdash;rendering
+violent explosions, and blasts, more like those of cannon, and
+of numerous muskets, than like thunder;&mdash;and casting down
+to the ground hot stones:&mdash;whilst the lightning that issued
+from the cloud was remarkably red; and moved with <i>less</i> velocity
+than usual.</p>
+
+<p>The cloud appeared of different shapes; to persons in different
+situations; and remained suspended a long time: but
+every where was plainly seen to be burning, and smoking like
+a furnace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And its original height, from a variety of circumstances put
+together, seems to have been much above the common region
+of the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>The testimony, concerning the falling of the stones from it,
+appears to be almost unquestionable:&mdash;and is, evidently, from
+different persons, who had no communication with each other.</p>
+
+<p>For first; the fall of four stones is precisely ascertained:
+one of which was of an irregular figure, with a point like that
+of a diamond;&mdash;weighed five pounds and an half;&mdash;and had a
+vitriolic smell.&mdash;And another weighed three pounds and an
+half;&mdash;was black on the outside, as if from smoke;&mdash;and, internally,
+seemed composed of matter of the colour of ashes;&mdash;in
+which were perceived small spots of metals, of gold and
+silver.</p>
+
+<p>And, besides these, Professor Soldani of Siena, was shewn
+about fifteen others: the surfaces of which were glazed black,
+like a sort of varnish;&mdash;resisted acids;&mdash;and were too hard
+to be scratched with the point of a penknife.</p>
+
+<p>Signior <i>Andrew Montauli</i>, who saw the cloud, as he was travelling,
+described it as appearing much above the common region
+of the clouds; and as being clearly discerned to be on
+fire;&mdash;and becoming white, by degrees; not only where it had
+a communication, by a sort of stream of smoke and lightning,
+with a neighbouring similar cloud: but also, at last, in two-third
+parts of its whole mass, which was originally black. And
+yet he took notice, that it was not affected by the rays of the
+sun, though they shone full on its lower parts.&mdash;And he could
+discern as it were the bason of a fiery furnace, in the cloud,
+having a whirling motion.</p>
+
+<p>This curious observer gives an account also, of a stone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+which he was assured fell from the cloud, at the feet of a
+farmer; and was dug out of the ground, into which it had penetrated.&mdash;And
+he says, that it was about five inches long, and
+four broad; nearly square; and polished: black on the surface,
+as if smoked; but within, like a sort of sand-stone, with
+various small particles of iron, and bright metallic stars.</p>
+
+<p>Other stones are described by him; which were said to have
+fallen at the same time: were triangular; and terminated in
+a sort of (pyramidal) or conical figure.&mdash;And others were so
+small as to weigh not more than an ounce.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Soldani saw another stone, said to have fallen
+from the cloud, which had the figure of a parallelopiped,
+blunted at the angles; and was as it were varnished, on the
+outside, with a black crust; and quite unlike any stones whatever
+of the soil of the country where it had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Two ladies being at <i>Cozone</i>, about 20 miles from <i>Siena</i>, saw
+a number of stones fall, with a great noise, in a neighbouring
+meadow: one of which, being soon after taken up by a young
+woman, burnt her hand: another burnt a countryman's hat:
+and a third was said to strike off the branch of a mulberry tree;
+and to cause the tree to wither.</p>
+
+<p>Another stone, of about two ounces weight, fell near a girl
+watching sheep; a young person, whose veracity it is said
+could not be doubted.&mdash;This stone, the Professor tells us, is
+also a parallelopiped, with the angles rounded; and its internal
+substance is like that of the others; only with more metallic
+spots; especially when viewed with a magnifying glass: and
+the black external crust appears to be minutely crystallized.</p>
+
+<p>Many others, of a similar kind, were in the possession of different
+persons at Siena.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And besides the falling of these from the cloud, there is
+described to have been a fall of sand; seen by keepers of cattle
+near <i>Cozone</i>, together with the falling of what appeared like
+squibs; and which proved afterwards to be stones, of the sort
+just described, weighing two or three ounces:&mdash;and some only
+a quarter of an ounce.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst other stones that fell; was one weighing two
+pounds, and two ounces; which was also an oblong parallelopiped,
+with blunted angles, (as they are called, but which I
+think meant plainly prismatical terminations, and are said to
+have been about an inch in height;) and this was most remarkable
+for having, a small circle, or sort of belt round it, in
+one part; wherein the black crust appeared more smooth;
+and shining like glass; as if that part had suffered a greater
+degree of heat than the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Another, also, was no less remarkable, for having many
+rounded cavities on its surface: as if the stone had been struck
+with small balls, whilst it was forming; and before it was
+hardened; which left their impressions.&mdash;And some appearances,
+of the same kind, were found on one of the four surfaces
+of another stone, in the possession of Soldani.</p>
+
+<p>On minute examination, the Professor found the stones were
+composed of blackish <i>crystals</i>, of different kinds; with metallic
+or pyritical spots, all united together by a kind of consolidated
+ashes.&mdash;And, on polishing them, they appeared to have
+a ground of a dark ash colour; intermixed with cubical blackish
+crystals, and shining pyritical specks, of a silver and gold colour.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion which Professor Soldani evidently forms, is;
+<i>that the stones were generated in the air, by a combination of
+mineral substances, which had risen somewhere or other</i>, <span class="smcap">as exhalations</span>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+<i>from the earth</i>: but, as he seems to think, <i>not from</i>
+Vesuvius.</p>
+
+<p>The names of many persons, besides those already referred
+to, are mentioned; who were eye witnesses to the fall of the
+stones. And several <i>depositions</i> were made, <i>in a regular juridical
+manner</i>, to ascertain the truth of the facts.</p>
+
+<p>The space of ground, within which the stones fell, was from
+three to four miles.</p>
+
+<p>The falling of them, was <i>the very day after</i> the great eruption
+of Vesuvius.</p>
+
+<p>And the distance of the place, from Vesuvius, could not be
+less than two hundred miles, and seems to have been more.</p>
+
+<p>Vesuvius is situated <i>to the south</i> of the spot: and the cloud
+came <i>from the north</i>; about thirteen, or at most eighteen hours,
+after the eruption.</p>
+
+<p>Now, putting all these circumstances together, I cannot but
+venture to form a conclusion, somewhat different from Professor
+Soldani's; though perfectly agreeing with his general
+principles.</p>
+
+<p>From a course of observations, and inquiries, which I have
+been led to pursue, for a great many years: tending to elucidate
+the history of extraneous fossils, and of the deluge; I have
+long been convinced, that stones in general, and strata of rocks,
+of all kinds, have been formed by <i>two</i> very different operations
+of those elements, which the wisdom, and omnipotent hand of
+God, has ordained, and created.</p>
+
+<p>The one, by means of fire:&mdash;and the other, by means of
+water.</p>
+
+<p>And, of each sort, there are two subdivisions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of the stones, and rocks, formed by fire;&mdash;there are some,
+(besides lavas,) whose component parts, having been previously
+fused, and in a melted state, did merely cool, and
+harden <i>gradually</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And there are others; whose component parts, having been
+fused, and in a melted state, and having so become completely
+liquid; did instantly, by the operation of the powers of <i>attraction</i>,
+become crystallized.</p>
+
+<p>And, in like manner; of stones, and of strata of rocks,
+formed by means of water;&mdash;there are some, which having
+had their component parts brought together, in a fluid state;
+did then merely become gradually settled; and by the power
+of attraction, and the mixture of crystalline particles, were
+hardened by degrees.</p>
+
+<p>And there are others: which, having had their component
+parts, in like manner, brought together by water, did yet, on
+account of the peculiar nature, and more powerful <i>attraction</i>
+of those parts, <i>instantly</i> crystallize.</p>
+
+<p>And both of stones, and of strata of rocks, formed by fire;
+and of stones, and of strata of rocks formed by means of
+water; there are some such, as have been slowly consolidated
+by the first kind of operation; namely by the gradual
+cooling or settling of the substances; which yet do contain
+imbedded in them, crystals formed by the latter kind of operation.</p>
+
+<p>Instances of which, we seem to have, in some granites, on
+the one hand;&mdash;and in some sorts of limestones on the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>To this I must add also; that there appear further, to have
+been some stones formed <i>by a sort of precipitation</i>: much in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+same manner as <i>Grew</i> describes<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> the kernels, and stones of
+fruit to have been hardened.</p>
+
+<p>And I have met with many instances, wherein it appears
+unquestionably, that all these kind of processes in nature are
+going on continually: and that extraneous substances are actually
+inclosed, and <i>continually inclosing</i>, which could not be
+<i>antediluvian</i>; but must have been recent.</p>
+
+<p>To these short premises, I must beg leave to add; that in
+two papers formerly printed in the Philosophical Transactions,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>
+I endeavoured, by some very remarkable instances, to
+prove, that iron, wherever it comes into combination with
+any substances that are tending to consolidation, <i>hastens the
+process exceedingly</i>;&mdash;and also renders the hardness of the body
+much greater.</p>
+
+<p>And I have also endeavoured, elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> to shew, in consequence
+of conclusions deduced from experiments of the most
+unquestionable authority, that <i>air</i>, in its various shapes and
+modifications, is indeed <i>itself</i> the great consolidating fluid, out
+of which solid bodies are composed; and by means of which
+the various attractions take place, which form all the hard
+bodies, and visible substances upon earth.</p>
+
+<p>From all these premises then, it was impossible for me not
+to be led to conclude; that we have, in this august phænomenon
+of the fall of stones from the clouds, in Tuscany, an obvious
+proof, as it were before our eyes, of the combined operation of
+those very powers, and processes, to which I have been alluding.</p>
+
+<p>It is well known; that pyrites, which are composed of iron,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>and sulphur, and other adventitious matter, when laid in
+heaps, and moistened, will take fire.</p>
+
+<p>It is also well known, that a mixture of pyrites of almost
+any kind, beaten small, and mixed with iron filings and water,
+when buried in the ground will take fire; and produce a sort
+of artificial volcano. And, surely then, wherever a vast quantity
+of such kind of matter should at any time become mixed
+together, as flying dust, or ashes; and be by any means
+condensed together, or compressed, the same effect might be
+produced, even in the atmosphere and air.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, therefore, of having recourse to the supposition,
+of the cloud in Tuscany having been produced by any other
+kind of exhalations from the earth; we may venture to believe,
+that an immense cloud of ashes, mixed with pyritical dust,
+and with numerous particles of iron, having been projected
+from Vesuvius to a most prodigious height, became afterwards
+condensed in its descent;&mdash;took fire, both of itself, as well as
+by means of the electric fluid it contained;&mdash;produced many
+explosions;&mdash;melted the pyritical, and metallic, and argillaceous
+particles, of which the ashes were composed;&mdash;and, by
+this means, had a sudden crystallization, and consolidation of
+those particles taken place, which formed the stones of various
+sizes, that fell to the ground: <i>but did not harden the clayey
+ashes so rapidly as the metallic particles crystallized</i>; and,
+therefore, gave an opportunity for <i>impressions to be made</i> on
+the surfaces of some of the stones, as they fell, by means of
+the impinging of the others.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does it appear to me, to be any solid objection to this
+conclusion, either that Vesuvius was so far distant; or that
+the cloud came from the north.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For, if we examine Sir William Hamilton's account of the
+very eruption in question,<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> we shall find, that he had reason
+to conclude, that the <i>pine-like</i> cloud of ashes projected from
+Vesuvius, at one part of the time during this eruption, was
+twenty-five or thirty miles in height; and, if to this conclusion
+we add, not only that some ashes actually were carried to
+a greater distance than <i>two hundred miles</i>;<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> but that, when
+any substance is at a vast height in the atmosphere, a very
+small variation of the direction of its course, causes a most
+prodigious variation in the extent of the range of ground
+where it shall fall; (just as the least variation in the angle,
+at the vertex of an <i>isosceles</i> triangle, causes a very great alteration
+in the extent of its base;) we may easily perceive, not
+only the possibility, but the probability, that the ashes in
+question, projected to so vast an height, were first carried
+even beyond <i>Siena</i> in Tuscany, northward; and then brought
+back, by a contrary current of wind, in the direction in which
+they fell.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Hamilton himself formed somewhat this sort
+of conclusion, on receiving the first intimation of this shower
+of stones from the Earl of Bristol.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></p>
+
+<p>I cannot therefore but allow my own conclusion to carry
+conviction with it to my own mind; and to send it forth into
+the world; as a ground, at least, for speculation, and reflection,
+to the minds of others.</p>
+
+<p>That ashes, and sand, and pyritical and sulphureous dust,
+mixed with metallic particles from volcanoes; fit for the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>stantaneous
+crystallization, and consolidation of such bodies as
+we have been describing, are often actually floating in the atmosphere,
+at incredible distances from volcanoes, and more
+frequently than the world are at all aware of, is manifest from
+several well attested facts.</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th of December, 1631, Captain <i>Badily</i>, being in
+the Gulph of Volo, in the Archipelago, riding at anchor, about
+ten o'clock at night, it began to rain <i>sand</i> and <i>ashes</i>; and continued
+to do so till two o'clock the next morning. The ashes
+lay about two inches thick on the deck: so that they cast them
+overboard just as they had done snow the day before. There
+was no wind stirring, when the ashes fell: and yet this extraordinary
+shower was not confined merely to the place where
+<i>Badily's</i> ship was;<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> but, as it appeared afterwards, was extended
+so widely to other parts, that ships coming from <i>St.
+John d'Acre</i> to that port, being at the distance of <i>one hundred
+leagues</i> from thence, were covered with the same sort of ashes.
+And no possible account could be given of them, except that
+they might come from Vesuvius.</p>
+
+<p>On the 23d of October, 1755, a ship belonging to a merchant
+of Leith, bound for Charles Town, in Carolina, being
+betwixt Shetland and Iceland, and about twenty-five leagues
+distant from the former, and therefore about three hundred
+miles from the latter, a shower of dust fell in the night upon
+the decks.<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p>
+
+<p>In October, 1762, at <i>Detroit</i>, in America, was a most surprising
+darkness, from day-break till four in the afternoon,
+during which time some rain falling, brought down, with the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>drops, sulphur and dirt; which rendered white paper black,
+and when burned fizzed like wet gunpowder:<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a> and whence
+such matter could originally be brought, appeared to be past
+all conjecture, unless it came so far off as from the volcano in
+Guadaloupe.</p>
+
+<p>Condamine says, the ashes of the volcano of <i>Sangay</i>, in
+South America, sometimes pass over the provinces of Maca,
+and Quito; and are even carried as far as Guayaquil.<a name="FNanchor_J_10" id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[J]</a></p>
+
+<p>And Hooke says,<a name="FNanchor_K_11" id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[K]</a> that on occasion of a great explosion from
+a volcano, in the island of Ternata, in the East Indies, there
+followed so great a darkness, that the inhabitants could not
+see each other the next day: and he justly leads us to infer
+what an immense quantity of ashes must, by this means, have
+been showered down somewhere on the sea; because at <i>Mindanao</i>,
+an hundred miles off, all the land was covered with
+ashes a foot thick.</p>
+
+<p>And now, I must add; that such kind of <i>falling of stones
+from the clouds</i>, as has been described to have happened in
+Tuscany, seems to have happened also in very remote ages, of
+which we are not without sufficient testimony; and such as
+well deserves to be allowed and considered, on the present occasion;
+although the knowledge of the facts was, at first, in
+days of ignorance and gross darkness, soon perverted to the
+very worst purposes.</p>
+
+<p>In the Acts of the holy Apostles, we read, that the chief magistrate,
+at <i>Ephesus</i>, begun his harangue to the people, by
+saying, "Ye men of Ephesus, <i>what man is there that knoweth
+not how that the City of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the
+great goddess Diana, and of the</i> <span class="smcap">image</span> <i>which fell down from
+Jupiter</i>?" (or rather, as the original Greek has it) "<i>of</i> <span class="smcap">that</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+<i>which fell down from Jupiter</i>?" And the learned <i>Greaves</i>
+leads us to conclude this image of Diana to have been nothing
+but <i>a conical, or pyramidal stone</i>, that fell from the clouds. For
+he tells us,<a name="FNanchor_L_12" id="FNanchor_L_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_12" class="fnanchor">[L]</a> on unquestionable authorities, that many others
+of the images of heathen deities were merely such.</p>
+
+<p>Herodian expressly declares,<a name="FNanchor_M_13" id="FNanchor_M_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_13" class="fnanchor">[M]</a> that the Ph&oelig;]nicians had no
+statue of the sun, polished by hand, to express an image; but
+only had a certain <i>great stone, circular below, and ending with
+a sharpness above, in the figure of a cone, of black colour. And
+they report it to have fallen from heaven, and to be the image of
+the sun</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So Tacitus says,<a name="FNanchor_N_14" id="FNanchor_N_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_14" class="fnanchor">[N]</a> that at Cyprus, <i>the image of Venus was
+not of human shape; but a figure rising continually round, from
+a larger bottom to a small top, in conical fashion</i>. And it is to
+be remarked, that <i>Maximus Tyrius</i> (who perhaps was a more
+accurate mathematician,) says, the stone was <i>pyramidal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And in Corinth, we are told by <i>Pausanias</i>,<a name="FNanchor_O_15" id="FNanchor_O_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_O_15" class="fnanchor">[O]</a> that the images
+both of <i>Jupiter Melichius</i>, and of <i>Diana</i>, were made (if made
+at all by hand) with little or no art. The former being represented
+by a pyramid, the latter by a column.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clemens Alexandrinus</i> was so well acquainted with these
+facts, that he even concludes<a name="FNanchor_P_16" id="FNanchor_P_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_16" class="fnanchor">[P]</a> the worship of such stones to
+have been the first, and earliest idolatry, in the world.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to conceive how mankind should ever have been
+led to so accursed an abomination, as the worship of stocks, and
+stones, at all: but, as far as any thing so horrid is to be ac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>counted
+for, there is no way so likely of rendering a possible
+account; as that of concluding, that some of these pyramidal
+stones, at least, like the image of <i>Diana</i>, actually did fall, in
+the earliest ages, from the clouds; in the same manner as
+these pyramidal stones fell, in 1794, in Tuscany.</p>
+
+<p><i>Plutarch</i>, it is well known, mentions<a name="FNanchor_Q_17" id="FNanchor_Q_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q_17" class="fnanchor">[Q]</a> a stone which formerly
+fell from the clouds, in <i>Thrace</i>, and which <i>Anaxagoras</i>
+fancied<a name="FNanchor_R_18" id="FNanchor_R_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_R_18" class="fnanchor">[R]</a> to have fallen from the sun.</p>
+
+<p>And it is very remarkable, that the old writer, from whom
+Plutarch had his account, described the cloud, from which this
+stone was said to fall, in a manner (if we only make some allowance
+for a little exaggeration in barbarous ages,) very similar
+to <i>Soldani's</i> account of the cloud in Tuscany.&mdash;It hovered
+about for a long time; seemed to throw out splinters, which
+flew about, like wandering stars, before they fell; and at last
+it cast down to the earth a stone of extraordinary size.</p>
+
+<p>Pliny,<a name="FNanchor_S_19" id="FNanchor_S_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_S_19" class="fnanchor">[S]</a> who tells us that not only the remembrance of this
+event, but that the stone itself was preserved to his days, says,
+it was of a dark burnt colour. And though he does indeed
+speak of it as being of an extravagant weight and size, in
+which circumstance perhaps he was misled: yet he mentions
+<i>another</i> of a moderate size, which fell in <i>Abydos</i>, and was become
+an object of idolatrous worship in that place; as was
+still <i>another</i>, of the same sort, at <i>Potidæa</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Livy</i>, who like <i>Herodotus</i>, has been oftentimes censured as
+too credulous, and as a relater of falsehoods, for preserving traditions
+of <i>an extraordinary kind</i>; which, after all, in ages of
+more enlarged information, have proved to have been founded
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>in truth; describes<a name="FNanchor_T_20" id="FNanchor_T_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_T_20" class="fnanchor">[T]</a> a fall of stones to have happened on
+mount <i>Alba</i>, during the reign of <i>Tullus Hostilius</i>, (that is
+about 652 years before the Christian æra), in words that exactly
+convey an idea of just such a phænomenon, as this which
+has so lately been observed in Tuscany.</p>
+
+<p>He says, the senate were told, that <i>lapidibus pluisse</i>, it had
+rained stones. And, when they doubted of the fact; and
+sent to inquire; they were assured that stones had actually
+fallen; and had fallen just as hail does, which is concreted in
+a storm.<a name="FNanchor_U_21" id="FNanchor_U_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_U_21" class="fnanchor">[U]</a></p>
+
+<p>He mentions also shortly another shower of stones,<a name="FNanchor_V_22" id="FNanchor_V_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_V_22" class="fnanchor">[V]</a> A. C.
+202, and still a third,<a name="FNanchor_W_23" id="FNanchor_W_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_W_23" class="fnanchor">[W]</a> which must have happened about the
+year 194 before the Christian æra.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the records of antient history. And in Holy Writ
+also a remembrance of similar events is preserved.</p>
+
+<p>For when the royal Psalmist says,<a name="FNanchor_X_24" id="FNanchor_X_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_X_24" class="fnanchor">[X]</a> "<i>The Lord also thundered
+out of heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder: hail-stones</i>,
+<span class="smcap">and coals of fire</span>,"&mdash;the latter expression, in consistency
+with common sense, and conformably to the right
+meaning of language, cannot but allude to some <i>such</i> phænomenon
+as we have been describing. And especially, as in the
+cautious translation of the seventy, a Greek word is used,
+which decidedly means <i>real hard substances made red hot</i>; and
+not mere appearances of fire or flame.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst therefore, with the same sacred writer,<a name="FNanchor_Y_25" id="FNanchor_Y_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_Y_25" class="fnanchor">[Y]</a> we should
+be led to consider all these powerful operations, as the works
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>of God; <i>Who casteth forth his ice like morsels</i>;<a name="FNanchor_Z_26" id="FNanchor_Z_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_Z_26" class="fnanchor">[Z]</a> and should be
+led to consider "<i>fire and hail, snow and vapours, wind and storm
+as fulfilling his word</i>;"<a name="FNanchor_AA_27" id="FNanchor_AA_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_AA_27" class="fnanchor">[AA]</a> we should also be led to perceive, that
+the objections to Holy Writ, founded on a supposed <i>impossibility</i>
+of the truth of what is written in the book of <i>Joshua</i>,<a name="FNanchor_BB_28" id="FNanchor_BB_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_BB_28" class="fnanchor">[BB]</a>
+concerning the stones that fell from heaven, on the army of
+the Canaanites; are only founded in ignorance, and error.</p>
+
+<p>And much more should we be led to do so; when, to these
+observations, and testimonies, concerning showers of hot burning
+stones, is added the consideration; that within the short
+period of our own lives, incredibly large <i>real hail-stones</i>, formed
+of consolidated ice;&mdash;<i>of ice consolidated in the atmosphere</i>,
+have fallen both in France, and in England.</p>
+
+<p>In France, on the 13th of July in the year 1788;&mdash;of which
+it is well known there has been a printed account: and concerning
+which it is said, and has been confirmed, on good authority,
+that some of the stones weighed three pounds: whilst
+others have been said to weigh even five pounds.</p>
+
+<p>And in England, on the 20th of October, 1791, in Cornwall.</p>
+
+<p>Of one of the hail-stones of this latter, minor storm, I have
+had an opportunity of obtaining, by the favour of a friend, an
+exact model in glass; whereof I now add an engraving.</p>
+
+<p>This stone fell, with thousands of others of the same kind,
+near <i>Menabilly</i>, the seat of <i>Philip Rashleigh</i>, Esq.; well known
+for his science, and attention to whatever is curious; who having
+great copper works, and many ingenious miners, and workmen,
+on his estate, and directly under his eye; caused it to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>be instantly picked up: and having then, himself, first traced
+both its top, and bottom, upon paper; and having measured
+its thickness in every part, with a pair of compasses; caused
+a very exact mould to be formed: and afterwards, in that
+mould, had this model cast in glass: wherein, also, the appearances
+of the imbedded, common, small, roundish hail-stones,
+are seen transparently; just as they appeared in the
+great hail-stone itself originally.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ifrontis">Fig. 1,</a> is a representation of the flat bottom of the stone.</p>
+
+<p>Fig. 2, is a representation of the top of the stone.</p>
+
+<p>And fig. 3, shews the whole solid appearance sideways.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Mr. Rashleigh was taking the measures, it melted
+so fast, that he could not, in the end, take the <i>exact weight</i>, as he
+fully intended to have done. But as this model in glass weighs
+exactly 1 ounce, 16 pennyweights, 23 grains, we may fairly
+conclude, that the hail-stone itself weighed much above half
+an ounce.</p>
+
+<p>For it is well known, that the specific gravity of common
+glass, of which sort this model is made, is to that of water, as
+2.620 to 1.000. And the specific gravity of common water, is
+to ice, as 8 to 7.<a name="FNanchor_CC_29" id="FNanchor_CC_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_CC_29" class="fnanchor">[CC]</a>&mdash;And computing according to this standard,
+I make the exact weight of the hail-stone to have been
+295 grains.</p>
+
+<p>From the singular manner in which the small, prior, common
+hail-stones appear to have been imbedded in this larger
+one, whilst they were falling to the earth; there is reason to
+be convinced, that it was formed in the atmosphere, by a sudden
+extraordinary congelation <i>almost instantaneously</i>, out of rain
+suddenly condensed, which was mingled with the common hail.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+<p>And it was very remarkable, that its dissolution, and melting,
+also, was much more rapid than that of the common small
+white hail-stones: as was the case, in like manner, with the
+other numerous large ones.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it ought to be here added:&mdash;that on the 18th of
+May, in the year 1680, some hail-stones are recorded to have
+fallen in London, near <i>Gresham college</i>, which were seen and
+examined by the celebrated <i>Dr. Hooke</i>; and were some of
+them not less than two inches over, and others three inches.</p>
+
+<p>This which fell in Cornwall was only about one inch and
+three quarters long; an inch, or in some parts an inch and a
+quarter broad; and between half an inch, and three quarters
+of an inch thick. And its weight was near an ounce.&mdash;How
+much more tremendous then were those others, that have been
+described as having fallen in France?&mdash;the accounts of some
+of them may very probably have been exaggerated: but the
+reality was nevertheless as wonderful, surely, as any thing related
+concerning the ages of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>A proneness to credulity is ever blameable. And it is very
+possible, that sometimes, in a very wonderful narration, a jest
+may be intended to be palmed upon the world, instead of any
+elucidation of truth.&mdash;But facts, <i>positively affirmed</i>, should be
+hearkened to with patience: and, at least, so far recorded, as to
+give an opportunity of verifying whether similar events do afterwards
+happen; and of comparing such events one with
+another.</p>
+
+<p>To what has been said, therefore, concerning the fall of stones
+in Tuscany, and concerning these strange showers of hail, in
+France, and in England, it might perhaps too justly be deemed
+an unwarrantable omission, on this occasion, not to mention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+the very strange fact that is affirmed to have happened the last
+year, near <i>the Wold Cottage</i> in Yorkshire.</p>
+
+<p>I leave the fact to rest on the support of the testimonies referred
+to in the printed paper, which is in so many persons' hands;
+and that is given to those who have the curiosity to examine
+the stone itself, now exhibiting in London;&mdash;and shall
+only relate the substance of the account shortly, as it is given
+to us.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon of the 13th of December, 1795, near the
+Wold Cottage, noises were heard in the air, by various persons,
+like the report of a pistol; or of guns at a distance at sea;
+though there was neither any thunder or lightning at the time:&mdash;two
+distinct concussions of the earth were said to be perceived:&mdash;and
+an hissing noise, was also affirmed to be heard by
+other persons, as of something passing through the air;&mdash;and a
+labouring man plainly saw (as we are told) that something was
+so passing; and beheld a stone, as it seemed, at last, (about ten
+yards, or thirty feet, distant from the ground) descending, and
+striking into the ground, which flew up all about him: and
+in falling, sparks of fire, seemed to fly from it.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards he went to the place, in company with others;
+who had witnessed part of the phænomena, and dug the stone
+up from the place, where it was buried about twenty-one
+inches deep.</p>
+
+<p>It smelt, (as it is said,) very strongly of sulphur, when it was
+dug up: and was even warm, and smoked:&mdash;it was found to
+be thirty inches in length, and twenty-eight and a half inches
+in breadth. And it weighed fifty-six pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the account.&mdash;I affirm nothing.&mdash;Neither do I pretend
+either absolutely to believe: or to disbelieve.&mdash;I have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+an opportunity to examine the whole of the evidence.&mdash;But it
+may be examined: and so I leave it to be.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, I will say: that <i>first</i> I saw a fragment of this
+stone; which had come into the hands of Sir Charles Blagden,
+from the Duke of Leeds: and afterwards I saw the stone itself.&mdash;That
+it plainly had a dark, black crust; with several concave
+impressions on the outside, which must have been made before
+it was quite hardened; just like what is related concerning the
+crusts of those stones that fell in Italy.&mdash;That its substance was
+not <i>properly</i> of a <i>granite kind</i>, as described in the printed paper;
+but a sort of <i>grit stone</i>; composed (somewhat like the stones
+said to have fallen in Italy) of sand and ashes.&mdash;That it contained
+very many particles, obviously of the appearance of gold,
+and silver, and iron; (or rather more truly of <i>pyrites</i>).&mdash;That
+there were also several small rusty specks; probably from decomposed
+pyrites;&mdash;and some striated marks;&mdash;that it does not
+effervesce with acids;&mdash;and that, as far as I have ever seen, or
+known, or have been able to obtain any information, no <i>such</i>
+stone has ever been found, before this time, in Yorkshire; or in
+any part of England. Nor can I easily conceive that such a species
+of stone could be formed, by art, to impose upon the public.</p>
+
+<p>Whether, therefore, it might, or might not, possibly be the
+effect of ashes flung out from <i>Heckla</i>, and wafted to England;
+like those flung out from Vesuvius, and (as I am disposed to believe)
+wafted to Tuscany, I have nothing to affirm.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to be understood to preserve mere records, the full authority
+for which, deserves to be investigated more and more.</p>
+
+<p>Having, nevertheless, gone so far as to say thus much; I
+ought to add, that the memorial of such sort of large stones having
+fallen from the clouds is still preserved also in Germany.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For one is recorded to have fallen in <i>Alsace</i>, in the midst of a
+storm of hail, November 29th, A. D. 1630;<a name="FNanchor_DD_30" id="FNanchor_DD_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_DD_30" class="fnanchor">[DD]</a> which is said to
+be preserved in the great church of <i>Anxissem</i>: and to be like
+a large dark sort of flint-stone; having its surface operated
+upon by fire: and to be of very many pounds weight.</p>
+
+<p>And another is said to be still preserved at Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>This last is described by <i>Abbé Stutz</i>, Assistant in the Imperial
+cabinet of curiosities at Vienna, in a book printed in German,
+at <i>Leipsyc</i>, in 1790: entitled <i>Bergbaukimde</i> (or <i>the Science of
+Mining</i>.)</p>
+
+<p>After describing two other stones, said to have fallen from
+the clouds: one in the <i>Eichstedt</i> country in Germany; and
+another in the <i>Bechin</i> circle, in Bohemia, in July, 1753; concerning
+the <i>real</i> falling of which he had expressed some
+doubts; he proceeds to describe the falling of two, (whereof
+this was one,) not far from <i>Agram</i>, the capital of <i>Croatia</i>, in
+Hungary; which caused him to change his opinion; and to
+believe, that the falling of such stones from heaven, was very
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>His words, fairly translated,<a name="FNanchor_EE_31" id="FNanchor_EE_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_EE_31" class="fnanchor">[EE]</a> in the beginning of his narrative,
+are, "These accounts put me in mind of a mass of iron,
+weighing seventy-one pounds, which was sent to the imperial
+collection of natural curiosities: about the origin of
+which <i>many mouths have been distorted with scoffing laughter</i>.
+If, in the <i>Eichstedt</i> specimen, the effects of fire appear <i>tolerably</i>
+evident; they are, in this, not to be mistaken.&mdash;Its
+surface is full of spherical impressions, like the mass of iron,
+which the celebrated <i>Pallas</i> found on the Jenisei river; except
+that here the impressions are larger, and less deep; and it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>wants both the yellow glass, which fills up the hollows of the
+<i>Siberian</i> iron; and the <i>sand stone</i>, which is found in the
+<i>Eichstedt</i> specimen; the whole mass being solid, compact, and
+black, like hammered iron."</p>
+
+<p>And his words in the end of the narrative are,</p>
+
+<p>"There is a great step from the disbelief of tales, to the
+finding out the true cause of a phænomenon which appears
+wonderful to us. And probably I should have committed the
+fault into which we so naturally fall, respecting things we
+cannot explain; and have rather denied the whole history,
+than have determined to believe any thing <i>so incredible</i>; if
+various new writings, on electricity, and thunder, had not
+fortunately, at that time come into my hands; concerning
+remarkable experiments of reviving <i>metallic calces</i> by the
+electric spark. Lightning is an electrical stroke on a large
+scale.&mdash;If then the reduction of iron can be obtained, by the
+discharge of an electrical machine; why should not this be
+accomplished as well, and with much greater effect by the
+very powerful discharge of the lightning of the clouds?"</p>
+
+<p>The substance of the account of the fall of stones, in Hungary,
+as given by him, after the most accurate inquiries, is
+what I shall now add in the following abridged detail; and it
+was verified by <i>Wolfgang Kukulyewich, Spiritual vicar of Francis
+Baron Clobuschiczky, Bishop of Agram</i>, who caused seven
+eye witnesses to be examined, concerning the actual falling of
+these stones on the 26th of May, 1751;&mdash;which witnesses were
+ready to testify all they affirmed, upon oath,&mdash;and one of them
+was Mr. George Marsich, Curate, as we should call him, of
+the parish.</p>
+
+<p>According to their accounts; about six o'clock, in the afternoon
+of the day just mentioned, there was seen towards the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+east, a kind of fiery ball; which, after it had burst into two
+parts, with a great report, exceeding that of a cannon, fell
+from the sky, in the form, and appearance of <i>two chains</i> entangled
+in one another:&mdash;and also with a loud noise, as of a
+great number of carriages rolled along. And after this a black
+smoke appeared; and a part of the ball seemed to fall in an
+arable field of one <i>Michael Koturnass</i>; on the fall of which to
+the ground a still greater noise was heard; and a shock perceived,
+something like an earthquake.</p>
+
+<p>This piece was afterwards soon dug out of the ground; which
+had been particularly noted to be plain and level, and ploughed
+just before; but where it was now found to have made a great
+fissure, or cleft, an ell wide, whilst it singed the earth on the
+sides.</p>
+
+<p>The other piece, which fell in a meadow, was also dug up;
+and weighed sixteen pounds.</p>
+
+<p>And it is fairly observed, that the unadorned manner in which
+the whole account from <i>Agram</i> is written; the agreement of
+the different witnesses, who had no reason to accord in a lie;
+and the similarity of this history to that of the <i>Eichstedt</i> stone;
+makes it at least very probable, that there was indeed something
+real, and worth notice, in the account.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Eichstedt</i> stone (somewhat like that said to have fallen
+so lately in Yorkshire) is described as having been composed of
+ash-grey sand stone, with fine grains intermixed all through
+it, partly of real native iron, and partly of yellowish brown
+ochre of iron: and as being about as hard as building stone.&mdash;It
+is said not to effervesce with acids, and evidently to consist
+of small particles of siliceous stone and iron.&mdash;It had also a
+solid malleable coat of native iron, as was supposed, quite free<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+from sulphur, and about two lines thick; which quite covered
+its surface; resembling a blackish glazing. And the whole
+mass exhibited evident marks of having been exposed to fire.</p>
+
+<p>A plain testimony of the falling of this was affirmed to be,
+produced as follows; that a labourer, at a brick-kiln, in winter,
+when the earth was covered with snow, saw it fall down out of
+the air immediately after a violent clap of thunder;&mdash;and that
+he instantly ran up to take it out of the snow; but found he
+could not do so, on account of its heat; and was obliged therefore
+to wait, to let it cool. That it was about half a foot in
+diameter; and was entirely covered with a black coat like
+iron.<a name="FNanchor_FF_32" id="FNanchor_FF_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_FF_32" class="fnanchor">[FF]</a></p>
+
+<p>And I must now add that there is a record;<a name="FNanchor_GG_33" id="FNanchor_GG_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_GG_33" class="fnanchor">[GG]</a> that stones, to
+the number of some hundreds, did once fall in the neighbourhood
+of a place called <i>Abdua</i>; which were very large and
+heavy;&mdash;of the colour of rusty iron;&mdash;smooth, and hard;&mdash;and
+of a sulphureous smell:&mdash;and which were observed to fall
+from a vehement whirlwind; that appeared (like that in Tuscany)
+as an atmosphere of fire.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In a very singular tract, published in 1794, at Riga, by Dr.
+<i>Chladni</i>, concerning the supposed origin of the mass of iron
+found by Dr. Pallas in Siberia; which the Tartars still affirm
+to be <i>an holy thing</i>, and, <i>to have fallen from heaven</i>; and concerning
+what have been supposed, by him, to be similar phænomena;
+some circumstances are also mentioned, which it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>would be an unjust omission not to take notice of shortly, on
+the present occasion.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>On the 21st of May, 1676, a fire ball was seen to come from
+Dalmatia,<a name="FNanchor_HH_34" id="FNanchor_HH_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_HH_34" class="fnanchor">[HH]</a> 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; <i>and the pieces are
+said to have fallen into the sea</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>Avicenna</i> mentions, (Averrhoes, lib. 2do Meteor. cap. 2.)
+that he had seen at Cordova, in Spain, a sulphureous stone that
+had fallen from heaven.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Spangenberg</i>'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.</p>
+
+<p>The well known, and celebrated <i>Cardan</i>, in his book, <i>De Varietate
+Rerum</i>, lib. 14. cap. 72. tells us, that he himself, in
+the year 1510, had seen one hundred and twenty stones fall
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>from heaven; among which one weighed one hundred and
+twenty; and another sixty pounds. That they were mostly
+of an <i>iron colour</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>And <i>Julius Scaliger</i> (in his book <i>De Subtilitate Exerc.</i> p.
+333.) affirms, that he had in his possession a piece of iron (as
+he calls it,) which had fallen from heaven in <i>Savoy</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wolf</i> (in <i>Lection. Memorab.</i> Tom. II. p. 911.) mentions a
+great triangular stone, described by <i>Sebastian Brandt</i>, (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.</p>
+
+<p><i>Muschenbroek</i>,<a name="FNanchor_II_35" id="FNanchor_II_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_II_35" class="fnanchor">[II]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chladni</i> also mentions another instance (from <i>Nic. Huknanfii</i>
+Hist. Hungar. lib. 20. fol. 394.) of five stones, said to have
+fallen from heaven at <i>Miscoz</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>He adds, (from <i>John Binbard</i>'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 <i>Thuringia</i>, with a clap
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>He adds, also, that in the 31st Essay of the Breslau Collections,
+p. 44, is found an account by Dr. <i>Rost</i>; that on the 22d
+of June, 1723, about two o'clock in the afternoon, in the
+country of Pleskowicz, some miles from <i>Reichstadt</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>And I shall conclude all <i>Chladni</i>'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 <i>newest</i> accounts of this kind, extracted from
+the <i>Histoire de l'Académie des Sciences</i>, 1769, p. 20.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>Maine</i>, <i>Artois</i>, and <i>Cotentin</i>: 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+three were covered with an hard ferruginous coat: and, on chemical
+investigation, they were found to contain iron, and sulphur.<a name="FNanchor_JJ_36" id="FNanchor_JJ_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_JJ_36" class="fnanchor">[JJ]</a></p>
+
+<p>Considering, then, all these facts so positively affirmed, concerning
+these various, most curious phænomena:&mdash;the explosions;&mdash;the
+sparks;&mdash;the lights;&mdash;the hissing noises;&mdash;the
+stones seen to fall;&mdash;the stones dug up hot, and even smoking;&mdash;and
+some scorching, and even burning other bodies in
+their passage;&mdash;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.<a name="FNanchor_KK_37" id="FNanchor_KK_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_KK_37" class="fnanchor">[KK]</a></p>
+
+<p>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;<a name="FNanchor_LL_38" id="FNanchor_LL_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_LL_38" class="fnanchor">[LL]</a> the tail, which appeared about 8° in length,
+was of a duskish red, burst in the atmosphere, when the head
+was about 7° above the horizon, and disappeared; and in the
+room thereof were seen three bodies like stars, within the
+compass of a little more than three degrees from the head,
+which also kept descending with the head.</p>
+
+<p>That before this, in another place, near Ancram in Scotland,
+(where the same meteor was seen) one-third of the tail, towards
+the extremity, appeared <i>to break off</i>, and to separate
+into sparks, resembling stars.&mdash;That soon after this the body
+of the meteor had its light extinguished, with an explosion;
+but, as it seemed to the observer there, <i>the form of the entire
+figure of the body, quite black, was seen to go still forwards in
+the air</i>.<a name="FNanchor_MM_39" id="FNanchor_MM_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_MM_39" class="fnanchor">[MM]</a> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+By some persons, also, an hissing noise<a name="FNanchor_NN_40" id="FNanchor_NN_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_NN_40" class="fnanchor">[NN]</a> was apprehended
+to be heard.</p>
+
+<p>Whether this might, or might not be an ignited body, of
+the kind we have been describing, falling to the earth, deserves
+consideration. Sir John Pringle seems to have been
+convinced that it was really <i>a solid substance</i>; but fairly adds,<a name="FNanchor_OO_41" id="FNanchor_OO_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_OO_41" class="fnanchor">[OO]</a>
+that if such meteors had really ever fallen to the earth, there
+must have been, long ago, so strong evidence of the fact, as to
+leave no room to doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, in the preceding accounts, we have such evidence,
+<i>now</i> fairly collected together; at least in a certain degree.</p>
+
+<p>I take all the facts, just as I find them affirmed. I have
+preserved a faithful and an honest record.</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of possible philosophical use;&mdash;let the philosophical,
+and curious just preserve these facts in remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of philological advantage;&mdash;let the discerning
+weigh, and judge. For (if such things be,) what has so often
+come to pass, according to what is commonly called <i>the usual
+course of nature</i>; may most undoubtedly, henceforth, without
+any hesitating doubts, be believed to have been brought to
+pass, on an extraordinary occasion, in a still more tremendous
+manner, by the immediate <i>fiat of the Almighty</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Let no man scoff; lest he drives away the means of real information.&mdash;And
+let all men <i>watch</i>, for the increase of science.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The wisdom and power of God are far above not only
+the first apprehensions, but even the highest ideas of man.
+And our truest wisdom, and best improvement of knowledge,
+consist in searching out, and in attending diligently,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>to what he has actually done: ever bearing in mind those
+words of the holy Psalmist.<a name="FNanchor_PP_42" id="FNanchor_PP_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_PP_42" class="fnanchor">[PP]</a></p>
+
+<p>"<i>The works of The Lord are great: sought out of all them
+that have pleasure therein.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Lord hath so done his marvellous works, that they ought
+to be had in remembrance.</i>"</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>POSTSCRIPT.</h2>
+
+<p style="margin-top: 2em;">Since these sheets were printed, I have received from Sir
+Charles Blagden, a present of one of the very small stones mentioned,
+p. 7, that are affirmed to have fallen in Tuscany; and
+which has very lately been brought carefully from Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Its figure plainly indicates, that in the instant of its formation,
+there was a strong effort towards crystallization. For it is an
+irregular quadrilateral pyramid;&mdash;whose base, an imperfect
+kind of square, has two of its adjoining sides about six-tenths
+of an inch long, each; and the other two, each about five-tenths:
+whilst two of the triangular sides of the pyramid, are
+about six-tenths, on every side of each triangle, all of which
+are a little curved: and the other two triangular sides, are only
+five-tenths on the sides where these two last join.</p>
+
+<p>Its black crust, or coating, is such as has been described in
+the preceding pages: and is also remarkable, for the appearance
+of a sort of minute chequer work, formed by very fine
+white lines on the black surface.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="border">
+<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+<br />
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> In his Anatomy of Plants, p. 41-184.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Vol. LXIII. p. 241&mdash;and Vol.
+LXIX. p. 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> In the Morsels of Criticism, p. 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> In the Philos. Trans. for 1795, p. 91, 92.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> This is mentioned by Sir William Hamilton himself, p. 105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> See Philos. Trans. for 1795, p. 104, 105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> See Lowthorp's Abridgement of the Philos. Trans. Vol. II. p. 143.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> Philos. Trans. Vol. XLIX. p. 510.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> Philos. Trans. Vol. LIII. p. 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_10" id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> Condamine's Journal, p. 57.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_11" id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> In his Experiments, p. 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_L_12" id="Footnote_L_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_12"><span class="label">[L]</span></a> Pyramidographia, Vol. I. 89-91.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M_13" id="Footnote_M_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_13"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> Lib. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N_14" id="Footnote_N_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_14"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> Lib. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_O_15" id="Footnote_O_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_O_15"><span class="label">[O]</span></a> In his Corinthiaca.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_P_16" id="Footnote_P_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_16"><span class="label">[P]</span></a> Clem. Alex. lib. 1.&mdash;Stromatum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Q_17" id="Footnote_Q_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q_17"><span class="label">[Q]</span></a> In Vita Lysandri.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_R_18" id="Footnote_R_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_R_18"><span class="label">[R]</span></a> Diogenes in Anaxag.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_S_19" id="Footnote_S_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_S_19"><span class="label">[S]</span></a> Historia Nat. lib. 2. cap. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_T_20" id="Footnote_T_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_T_20"><span class="label">[T]</span></a> Lib. 1. Sec. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_U_21" id="Footnote_U_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_U_21"><span class="label">[U]</span></a> Haud aliter quam quum grandinem venti
+glomeratam in terras agunt, crebri cecidere c&oelig;lo lapides.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_V_22" id="Footnote_V_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_V_22"><span class="label">[V]</span></a> Lib. 30. Sec. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_W_23" id="Footnote_W_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_W_23"><span class="label">[W]</span></a> Lib. 34. Sec. 45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_X_24" id="Footnote_X_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_X_24"><span class="label">[X]</span></a> Psalm 18. v. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Y_25" id="Footnote_Y_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Y_25"><span class="label">[Y]</span></a> Psalm 148. v. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Z_26" id="Footnote_Z_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Z_26"><span class="label">[Z]</span></a> Psalm 147. v. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AA_27" id="Footnote_AA_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AA_27"><span class="label">[AA]</span></a> Psalm 148. v. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BB_28" id="Footnote_BB_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BB_28"><span class="label">[BB]</span></a> Joshua, ch. 10. v. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CC_29" id="Footnote_CC_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CC_29"><span class="label">[CC]</span></a> Hooke's Experiments, p. 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DD_30" id="Footnote_DD_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DD_30"><span class="label">[DD]</span></a> Vide Gesner.&mdash;and Ans de Boot Hist. Lapidum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EE_31" id="Footnote_EE_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EE_31"><span class="label">[EE]</span></a> For which translation I am obliged to Sir Charles Blagden.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FF_32" id="Footnote_FF_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FF_32"><span class="label">[FF]</span></a> This account, from Abbé <i>Stutz</i>, and the following from Dr. <i>Chladni</i>, I received,
+translated from the German, by the favour of Sir Charles Blagden.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GG_33" id="Footnote_GG_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GG_33"><span class="label">[GG]</span></a> Vide Cardan <i>De Variet</i>, lib. 14. c. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HH_34" id="Footnote_HH_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HH_34"><span class="label">[HH]</span></a> An account of this stone is given by Dr. Halley in the Philosophical Trans. No.
+341. And also there is an account of it by Montenari.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_II_35" id="Footnote_II_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_II_35"><span class="label">[II]</span></a> Essai de Physique, Tom. II. sect. 1557.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JJ_36" id="Footnote_JJ_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JJ_36"><span class="label">[JJ]</span></a> All these facts are to be found mentioned in Chladni's book; first at p. 8, and
+then from p. 34 to 37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KK_37" id="Footnote_KK_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KK_37"><span class="label">[KK]</span></a> See the full account in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LI. for 1759, p. 218, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LL_38" id="Footnote_LL_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LL_38"><span class="label">[LL]</span></a> This is according to the account sent by the Rev. Mr. Michell, Fellow of Queen's
+College, Cambridge, p. 223.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MM_39" id="Footnote_MM_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MM_39"><span class="label">[MM]</span></a> Ib. p. 237, 265, 269.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NN_40" id="Footnote_NN_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NN_40"><span class="label">[NN]</span></a> Ib. p. 265.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OO_41" id="Footnote_OO_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OO_41"><span class="label">[OO]</span></a> Ib. p. 272.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_PP_42" id="Footnote_PP_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_PP_42"><span class="label">[PP]</span></a> Psalm III. v. 2 and 4.</p></div>
+</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have
+Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have
+Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times
+
+Author: Edward King
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2009 [EBook #29281]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS CONCERNING STONES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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+
+
+ REMARKS
+ CONCERNING
+ STONES
+ SAID TO HAVE FALLEN FROM THE CLOUDS, BOTH
+ IN THESE DAYS,
+ AND IN ANTIENT TIMES.
+
+ BY
+ EDWARD KING, ESQ. F. R. S. AND F. A. S.
+
+
+    Res ubi plurimum proficere, et valere possunt, collocari debent.
+                                                      Cicero de Orat. 37.
+
+
+ LONDON:
+ PRINTED FOR G. NICOL, BOOKSELLER TO HIS MAJESTY,
+ PALL-MALL.
+ 1796.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: F.1.  F.3.  F.2.]
+
+
+
+
+  _An Attempt to account for the Production of a Shower of Stones,
+  that fell in Tuscany, on the 16th of June, 1794; and to shew that
+  there are Traces of similar Events having taken place, in the
+  highest Ages of Antiquity. In the course of which Detail is also
+  inserted, an Account of an extraordinary Hail-stone, that fell, with
+  many others, in Cornwall, on the 20th of October, 1791._
+
+
+Having received this last winter, from Sir Charles Blagden, some very
+curious _manuscript_ accounts, concerning a surprising shower of stones;
+which is said, on the testimony of several persons, to have fallen in
+Tuscany, on the 16th of June, 1794;--and having also perused, with much
+attention, a very interesting pamphlet, written in Italian, by _Abbate
+Ambrose Soldani_, Professor of mathematics, in the University of Siena,
+containing an extraordinary and full detail of such facts as could be
+collected relating to this shower; the whole has appeared to me to
+afford such an ample field for philosophical contemplation, and also for
+the illustration of antient historic facts; that (leaving the whole to
+rest upon such testimony as the learned Professor has already collected
+together; and to be supported by such further corroboration, as I am
+informed is likely _soon_ to arrive in England,) I cannot but think it
+doing some service to the cause of literature, and science, to give to
+the world, in the earliest instance, a short abridgement of the
+substance of the whole of the information; expressed in the most concise
+and plainest language, in which it is possible for me to convey a full
+and exact idea of the phaenomenon.
+
+It may be of some use, and afford satisfaction to several curious
+persons, to find the whole here compressed in so small a compass.
+
+And, as I shall add my own conclusions without reserve; because the
+whole of the phaenomenon tends greatly to confirm some ideas which I had
+previously been led to form, many years ago, concerning the
+consolidation of certain species of stone; it may open a door for
+further curious investigation.
+
+And it may at least amuse, if not instruct; whilst I add a short detail
+of uncommon facts, recorded in antient history, and tending to shew
+clearly, that we are not without precedents of _similar events_ having
+happened, in the early ages of antiquity.
+
+On the 16th of June, 1794, a tremendous cloud was seen in Tuscany, near
+Siena, and Radacofani; coming from the north, about seven o'clock in the
+evening;--sending forth sparks, like rockets;--throwing out smoke like a
+furnace;--rendering violent explosions, and blasts, more like those of
+cannon, and of numerous muskets, than like thunder;--and casting down to
+the ground hot stones:--whilst the lightning that issued from the cloud
+was remarkably red; and moved with _less_ velocity than usual.
+
+The cloud appeared of different shapes; to persons in different
+situations; and remained suspended a long time: but every where was
+plainly seen to be burning, and smoking like a furnace.
+
+And its original height, from a variety of circumstances put together,
+seems to have been much above the common region of the clouds.
+
+The testimony, concerning the falling of the stones from it, appears to
+be almost unquestionable:--and is, evidently, from different persons,
+who had no communication with each other.
+
+For first; the fall of four stones is precisely ascertained: one of
+which was of an irregular figure, with a point like that of a
+diamond;--weighed five pounds and an half;--and had a vitriolic
+smell.--And another weighed three pounds and an half;--was black on the
+outside, as if from smoke;--and, internally, seemed composed of matter
+of the colour of ashes;--in which were perceived small spots of metals,
+of gold and silver.
+
+And, besides these, Professor Soldani of Siena, was shewn about fifteen
+others: the surfaces of which were glazed black, like a sort of
+varnish;--resisted acids;--and were too hard to be scratched with the
+point of a penknife.
+
+Signior _Andrew Montauli_, who saw the cloud, as he was travelling,
+described it as appearing much above the common region of the clouds;
+and as being clearly discerned to be on fire;--and becoming white, by
+degrees; not only where it had a communication, by a sort of stream of
+smoke and lightning, with a neighbouring similar cloud: but also, at
+last, in two-third parts of its whole mass, which was originally black.
+And yet he took notice, that it was not affected by the rays of the sun,
+though they shone full on its lower parts.--And he could discern as it
+were the bason of a fiery furnace, in the cloud, having a whirling
+motion.
+
+This curious observer gives an account also, of a stone, which he was
+assured fell from the cloud, at the feet of a farmer; and was dug out of
+the ground, into which it had penetrated.--And he says, that it was
+about five inches long, and four broad; nearly square; and polished:
+black on the surface, as if smoked; but within, like a sort of
+sand-stone, with various small particles of iron, and bright metallic
+stars.
+
+Other stones are described by him; which were said to have fallen at the
+same time: were triangular; and terminated in a sort of (pyramidal) or
+conical figure.--And others were so small as to weigh not more than an
+ounce.
+
+Professor Soldani saw another stone, said to have fallen from the cloud,
+which had the figure of a parallelopiped, blunted at the angles; and was
+as it were varnished, on the outside, with a black crust; and quite
+unlike any stones whatever of the soil of the country where it had
+fallen.
+
+Two ladies being at _Cozone_, about 20 miles from _Siena_, saw a number
+of stones fall, with a great noise, in a neighbouring meadow: one of
+which, being soon after taken up by a young woman, burnt her hand:
+another burnt a countryman's hat: and a third was said to strike off the
+branch of a mulberry tree; and to cause the tree to wither.
+
+Another stone, of about two ounces weight, fell near a girl watching
+sheep; a young person, whose veracity it is said could not be
+doubted.--This stone, the Professor tells us, is also a parallelopiped,
+with the angles rounded; and its internal substance is like that of the
+others; only with more metallic spots; especially when viewed with a
+magnifying glass: and the black external crust appears to be minutely
+crystallized.
+
+Many others, of a similar kind, were in the possession of different
+persons at Siena.
+
+And besides the falling of these from the cloud, there is described to
+have been a fall of sand; seen by keepers of cattle near _Cozone_,
+together with the falling of what appeared like squibs; and which proved
+afterwards to be stones, of the sort just described, weighing two or
+three ounces:--and some only a quarter of an ounce.
+
+Amongst other stones that fell; was one weighing two pounds, and two
+ounces; which was also an oblong parallelopiped, with blunted angles,
+(as they are called, but which I think meant plainly prismatical
+terminations, and are said to have been about an inch in height;) and
+this was most remarkable for having, a small circle, or sort of belt
+round it, in one part; wherein the black crust appeared more smooth; and
+shining like glass; as if that part had suffered a greater degree of
+heat than the rest.
+
+Another, also, was no less remarkable, for having many rounded cavities
+on its surface: as if the stone had been struck with small balls, whilst
+it was forming; and before it was hardened; which left their
+impressions.--And some appearances, of the same kind, were found on one
+of the four surfaces of another stone, in the possession of Soldani.
+
+On minute examination, the Professor found the stones were composed of
+blackish _crystals_, of different kinds; with metallic or pyritical
+spots, all united together by a kind of consolidated ashes.--And, on
+polishing them, they appeared to have a ground of a dark ash colour;
+intermixed with cubical blackish crystals, and shining pyritical specks,
+of a silver and gold colour.
+
+The conclusion which Professor Soldani evidently forms, is; _that the
+stones were generated in the air, by a combination of mineral
+substances, which had risen somewhere or other_, AS EXHALATIONS, _from
+the earth_: but, as he seems to think, _not from_ Vesuvius.
+
+The names of many persons, besides those already referred to, are
+mentioned; who were eye witnesses to the fall of the stones. And several
+_depositions_ were made, _in a regular juridical manner_, to ascertain
+the truth of the facts.
+
+The space of ground, within which the stones fell, was from three to
+four miles.
+
+The falling of them, was _the very day after_ the great eruption of
+Vesuvius.
+
+And the distance of the place, from Vesuvius, could not be less than two
+hundred miles, and seems to have been more.
+
+Vesuvius is situated _to the south_ of the spot: and the cloud came
+_from the north_; about thirteen, or at most eighteen hours, after the
+eruption.
+
+Now, putting all these circumstances together, I cannot but venture to
+form a conclusion, somewhat different from Professor Soldani's; though
+perfectly agreeing with his general principles.
+
+From a course of observations, and inquiries, which I have been led to
+pursue, for a great many years: tending to elucidate the history of
+extraneous fossils, and of the deluge; I have long been convinced, that
+stones in general, and strata of rocks, of all kinds, have been formed
+by _two_ very different operations of those elements, which the wisdom,
+and omnipotent hand of God, has ordained, and created.
+
+The one, by means of fire:--and the other, by means of water.
+
+And, of each sort, there are two subdivisions.
+
+Of the stones, and rocks, formed by fire;--there are some, (besides
+lavas,) whose component parts, having been previously fused, and in a
+melted state, did merely cool, and harden _gradually_.
+
+And there are others; whose component parts, having been fused, and in a
+melted state, and having so become completely liquid; did instantly, by
+the operation of the powers of _attraction_, become crystallized.
+
+And, in like manner; of stones, and of strata of rocks, formed by means
+of water;--there are some, which having had their component parts
+brought together, in a fluid state; did then merely become gradually
+settled; and by the power of attraction, and the mixture of crystalline
+particles, were hardened by degrees.
+
+And there are others: which, having had their component parts, in like
+manner, brought together by water, did yet, on account of the peculiar
+nature, and more powerful _attraction_ of those parts, _instantly_
+crystallize.
+
+And both of stones, and of strata of rocks, formed by fire; and of
+stones, and of strata of rocks formed by means of water; there are some
+such, as have been slowly consolidated by the first kind of operation;
+namely by the gradual cooling or settling of the substances; which yet
+do contain imbedded in them, crystals formed by the latter kind of
+operation.
+
+Instances of which, we seem to have, in some granites, on the one
+hand;--and in some sorts of limestones on the other.
+
+To this I must add also; that there appear further, to have been some
+stones formed _by a sort of precipitation_: much in the same manner as
+_Grew_ describes[A] the kernels, and stones of fruit to have been
+hardened.
+
+And I have met with many instances, wherein it appears unquestionably,
+that all these kind of processes in nature are going on continually: and
+that extraneous substances are actually inclosed, and _continually
+inclosing_, which could not be _antediluvian_; but must have been
+recent.
+
+To these short premises, I must beg leave to add; that in two papers
+formerly printed in the Philosophical Transactions,[B] I endeavoured, by
+some very remarkable instances, to prove, that iron, wherever it comes
+into combination with any substances that are tending to consolidation,
+_hastens the process exceedingly_;--and also renders the hardness of the
+body much greater.
+
+And I have also endeavoured, elsewhere,[C] to shew, in consequence of
+conclusions deduced from experiments of the most unquestionable
+authority, that _air_, in its various shapes and modifications, is
+indeed _itself_ the great consolidating fluid, out of which solid bodies
+are composed; and by means of which the various attractions take place,
+which form all the hard bodies, and visible substances upon earth.
+
+From all these premises then, it was impossible for me not to be led to
+conclude; that we have, in this august phaenomenon of the fall of stones
+from the clouds, in Tuscany, an obvious proof, as it were before our
+eyes, of the combined operation of those very powers, and processes, to
+which I have been alluding.
+
+It is well known; that pyrites, which are composed of iron, and
+sulphur, and other adventitious matter, when laid in heaps, and
+moistened, will take fire.
+
+It is also well known, that a mixture of pyrites of almost any kind,
+beaten small, and mixed with iron filings and water, when buried in the
+ground will take fire; and produce a sort of artificial volcano. And,
+surely then, wherever a vast quantity of such kind of matter should at
+any time become mixed together, as flying dust, or ashes; and be by any
+means condensed together, or compressed, the same effect might be
+produced, even in the atmosphere and air.
+
+Instead, therefore, of having recourse to the supposition, of the cloud
+in Tuscany having been produced by any other kind of exhalations from
+the earth; we may venture to believe, that an immense cloud of ashes,
+mixed with pyritical dust, and with numerous particles of iron, having
+been projected from Vesuvius to a most prodigious height, became
+afterwards condensed in its descent;--took fire, both of itself, as well
+as by means of the electric fluid it contained;--produced many
+explosions;--melted the pyritical, and metallic, and argillaceous
+particles, of which the ashes were composed;--and, by this means, had a
+sudden crystallization, and consolidation of those particles taken
+place, which formed the stones of various sizes, that fell to the
+ground: _but did not harden the clayey ashes so rapidly as the metallic
+particles crystallized_; and, therefore, gave an opportunity for
+_impressions to be made_ on the surfaces of some of the stones, as they
+fell, by means of the impinging of the others.
+
+Nor does it appear to me, to be any solid objection to this conclusion,
+either that Vesuvius was so far distant; or that the cloud came from the
+north.
+
+For, if we examine Sir William Hamilton's account of the very eruption
+in question,[D] we shall find, that he had reason to conclude, that the
+_pine-like_ cloud of ashes projected from Vesuvius, at one part of the
+time during this eruption, was twenty-five or thirty miles in height;
+and, if to this conclusion we add, not only that some ashes actually
+were carried to a greater distance than _two hundred miles_;[E] but
+that, when any substance is at a vast height in the atmosphere, a very
+small variation of the direction of its course, causes a most prodigious
+variation in the extent of the range of ground where it shall fall;
+(just as the least variation in the angle, at the vertex of an
+_isosceles_ triangle, causes a very great alteration in the extent of
+its base;) we may easily perceive, not only the possibility, but the
+probability, that the ashes in question, projected to so vast an height,
+were first carried even beyond _Siena_ in Tuscany, northward; and then
+brought back, by a contrary current of wind, in the direction in which
+they fell.
+
+Sir William Hamilton himself formed somewhat this sort of conclusion, on
+receiving the first intimation of this shower of stones from the Earl of
+Bristol.[F]
+
+I cannot therefore but allow my own conclusion to carry conviction with
+it to my own mind; and to send it forth into the world; as a ground, at
+least, for speculation, and reflection, to the minds of others.
+
+That ashes, and sand, and pyritical and sulphureous dust, mixed with
+metallic particles from volcanoes; fit for the instantaneous
+crystallization, and consolidation of such bodies as we have been
+describing, are often actually floating in the atmosphere, at incredible
+distances from volcanoes, and more frequently than the world are at all
+aware of, is manifest from several well attested facts.
+
+On the 26th of December, 1631, Captain _Badily_, being in the Gulph of
+Volo, in the Archipelago, riding at anchor, about ten o'clock at night,
+it began to rain _sand_ and _ashes_; and continued to do so till two
+o'clock the next morning. The ashes lay about two inches thick on the
+deck: so that they cast them overboard just as they had done snow the
+day before. There was no wind stirring, when the ashes fell: and yet
+this extraordinary shower was not confined merely to the place where
+_Badily's_ ship was;[G] but, as it appeared afterwards, was extended so
+widely to other parts, that ships coming from _St. John d'Acre_ to that
+port, being at the distance of _one hundred leagues_ from thence, were
+covered with the same sort of ashes. And no possible account could be
+given of them, except that they might come from Vesuvius.
+
+On the 23d of October, 1755, a ship belonging to a merchant of Leith,
+bound for Charles Town, in Carolina, being betwixt Shetland and Iceland,
+and about twenty-five leagues distant from the former, and therefore
+about three hundred miles from the latter, a shower of dust fell in the
+night upon the decks.[H]
+
+In October, 1762, at _Detroit_, in America, was a most surprising
+darkness, from day-break till four in the afternoon, during which time
+some rain falling, brought down, with the drops, sulphur and dirt;
+which rendered white paper black, and when burned fizzed like wet
+gunpowder:[I] and whence such matter could originally be brought,
+appeared to be past all conjecture, unless it came so far off as from
+the volcano in Guadaloupe.
+
+Condamine says, the ashes of the volcano of _Sangay_, in South America,
+sometimes pass over the provinces of Maca, and Quito; and are even
+carried as far as Guayaquil.[J]
+
+And Hooke says,[K] that on occasion of a great explosion from a volcano,
+in the island of Ternata, in the East Indies, there followed so great a
+darkness, that the inhabitants could not see each other the next day:
+and he justly leads us to infer what an immense quantity of ashes must,
+by this means, have been showered down somewhere on the sea; because at
+_Mindanao_, an hundred miles off, all the land was covered with ashes a
+foot thick.
+
+And now, I must add; that such kind of _falling of stones from the
+clouds_, as has been described to have happened in Tuscany, seems to
+have happened also in very remote ages, of which we are not without
+sufficient testimony; and such as well deserves to be allowed and
+considered, on the present occasion; although the knowledge of the facts
+was, at first, in days of ignorance and gross darkness, soon perverted
+to the very worst purposes.
+
+In the Acts of the holy Apostles, we read, that the chief magistrate, at
+_Ephesus_, begun his harangue to the people, by saying, "Ye men of
+Ephesus, _what man is there that knoweth not how that the City of the
+Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the_ IMAGE
+_which fell down from Jupiter_?" (or rather, as the original Greek has
+it) "_of_ THAT _which fell down from Jupiter_?" And the learned
+_Greaves_ leads us to conclude this image of Diana to have been nothing
+but _a conical, or pyramidal stone_, that fell from the clouds. For he
+tells us,[L] on unquestionable authorities, that many others of the
+images of heathen deities were merely such.
+
+Herodian expressly declares,[M] that the Phoenicians had no statue of
+the sun, polished by hand, to express an image; but only had a certain
+_great stone, circular below, and ending with a sharpness above, in the
+figure of a cone, of black colour. And they report it to have fallen
+from heaven, and to be the image of the sun_.
+
+So Tacitus says,[N] that at Cyprus, _the image of Venus was not of human
+shape; but a figure rising continually round, from a larger bottom to a
+small top, in conical fashion_. And it is to be remarked, that _Maximus
+Tyrius_ (who perhaps was a more accurate mathematician,) says, the stone
+was _pyramidal_.
+
+And in Corinth, we are told by _Pausanias_,[O] that the images both of
+_Jupiter Melichius_, and of _Diana_, were made (if made at all by hand)
+with little or no art. The former being represented by a pyramid, the
+latter by a column.
+
+_Clemens Alexandrinus_ was so well acquainted with these facts, that he
+even concludes[P] the worship of such stones to have been the first, and
+earliest idolatry, in the world.
+
+It is hard to conceive how mankind should ever have been led to so
+accursed an abomination, as the worship of stocks, and stones, at all:
+but, as far as any thing so horrid is to be accounted for, there is no
+way so likely of rendering a possible account; as that of concluding,
+that some of these pyramidal stones, at least, like the image of
+_Diana_, actually did fall, in the earliest ages, from the clouds; in
+the same manner as these pyramidal stones fell, in 1794, in Tuscany.
+
+_Plutarch_, it is well known, mentions[Q] a stone which formerly fell
+from the clouds, in _Thrace_, and which _Anaxagoras_ fancied[R] to have
+fallen from the sun.
+
+And it is very remarkable, that the old writer, from whom Plutarch had
+his account, described the cloud, from which this stone was said to
+fall, in a manner (if we only make some allowance for a little
+exaggeration in barbarous ages,) very similar to _Soldani's_ account of
+the cloud in Tuscany.--It hovered about for a long time; seemed to throw
+out splinters, which flew about, like wandering stars, before they fell;
+and at last it cast down to the earth a stone of extraordinary size.
+
+Pliny,[S] who tells us that not only the remembrance of this event, but
+that the stone itself was preserved to his days, says, it was of a dark
+burnt colour. And though he does indeed speak of it as being of an
+extravagant weight and size, in which circumstance perhaps he was
+misled: yet he mentions _another_ of a moderate size, which fell in
+_Abydos_, and was become an object of idolatrous worship in that place;
+as was still _another_, of the same sort, at _Potidaea_.
+
+_Livy_, who like _Herodotus_, has been oftentimes censured as too
+credulous, and as a relater of falsehoods, for preserving traditions of
+_an extraordinary kind_; which, after all, in ages of more enlarged
+information, have proved to have been founded in truth; describes[T] a
+fall of stones to have happened on mount _Alba_, during the reign of
+_Tullus Hostilius_, (that is about 652 years before the Christian aera),
+in words that exactly convey an idea of just such a phaenomenon, as this
+which has so lately been observed in Tuscany.
+
+He says, the senate were told, that _lapidibus pluisse_, it had rained
+stones. And, when they doubted of the fact; and sent to inquire; they
+were assured that stones had actually fallen; and had fallen just as
+hail does, which is concreted in a storm.[U]
+
+He mentions also shortly another shower of stones,[V] A. C. 202, and
+still a third,[W] which must have happened about the year 194 before the
+Christian aera.
+
+Such are the records of antient history. And in Holy Writ also a
+remembrance of similar events is preserved.
+
+For when the royal Psalmist says,[X] "_The Lord also thundered out of
+heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder: hail-stones_, AND COALS OF
+FIRE,"--the latter expression, in consistency with common sense, and
+conformably to the right meaning of language, cannot but allude to some
+_such_ phaenomenon as we have been describing. And especially, as in the
+cautious translation of the seventy, a Greek word is used, which
+decidedly means _real hard substances made red hot_; and not mere
+appearances of fire or flame.
+
+Whilst therefore, with the same sacred writer,[Y] we should be led to
+consider all these powerful operations, as the works of God; _Who
+casteth forth his ice like morsels_;[Z] and should be led to consider
+"_fire and hail, snow and vapours, wind and storm as fulfilling his
+word_;"[AA] we should also be led to perceive, that the objections to
+Holy Writ, founded on a supposed _impossibility_ of the truth of what is
+written in the book of _Joshua_,[BB] concerning the stones that fell
+from heaven, on the army of the Canaanites; are only founded in
+ignorance, and error.
+
+And much more should we be led to do so; when, to these observations,
+and testimonies, concerning showers of hot burning stones, is added the
+consideration; that within the short period of our own lives, incredibly
+large _real hail-stones_, formed of consolidated ice;--_of ice
+consolidated in the atmosphere_, have fallen both in France, and in
+England.
+
+In France, on the 13th of July in the year 1788;--of which it is well
+known there has been a printed account: and concerning which it is said,
+and has been confirmed, on good authority, that some of the stones
+weighed three pounds: whilst others have been said to weigh even five
+pounds.
+
+And in England, on the 20th of October, 1791, in Cornwall.
+
+Of one of the hail-stones of this latter, minor storm, I have had an
+opportunity of obtaining, by the favour of a friend, an exact model in
+glass; whereof I now add an engraving.
+
+This stone fell, with thousands of others of the same kind, near
+_Menabilly_, the seat of _Philip Rashleigh_, Esq.; well known for his
+science, and attention to whatever is curious; who having great copper
+works, and many ingenious miners, and workmen, on his estate, and
+directly under his eye; caused it to be instantly picked up: and having
+then, himself, first traced both its top, and bottom, upon paper; and
+having measured its thickness in every part, with a pair of compasses;
+caused a very exact mould to be formed: and afterwards, in that mould,
+had this model cast in glass: wherein, also, the appearances of the
+imbedded, common, small, roundish hail-stones, are seen transparently;
+just as they appeared in the great hail-stone itself originally.
+
+Fig. 1, is a representation of the flat bottom of the stone.
+
+Fig. 2, is a representation of the top of the stone.
+
+And fig. 3, shews the whole solid appearance sideways.
+
+Whilst Mr. Rashleigh was taking the measures, it melted so fast, that he
+could not, in the end, take the _exact weight_, as he fully intended to
+have done. But as this model in glass weighs exactly 1 ounce, 16
+pennyweights, 23 grains, we may fairly conclude, that the hail-stone
+itself weighed much above half an ounce.
+
+For it is well known, that the specific gravity of common glass, of
+which sort this model is made, is to that of water, as 2.620 to 1.000.
+And the specific gravity of common water, is to ice, as 8 to 7.[CC]--And
+computing according to this standard, I make the exact weight of the
+hail-stone to have been 295 grains.
+
+From the singular manner in which the small, prior, common hail-stones
+appear to have been imbedded in this larger one, whilst they were
+falling to the earth; there is reason to be convinced, that it was
+formed in the atmosphere, by a sudden extraordinary congelation _almost
+instantaneously_, out of rain suddenly condensed, which was mingled with
+the common hail.
+
+And it was very remarkable, that its dissolution, and melting, also, was
+much more rapid than that of the common small white hail-stones: as was
+the case, in like manner, with the other numerous large ones.
+
+Perhaps it ought to be here added:--that on the 18th of May, in the year
+1680, some hail-stones are recorded to have fallen in London, near
+_Gresham college_, which were seen and examined by the celebrated _Dr.
+Hooke_; and were some of them not less than two inches over, and others
+three inches.
+
+This which fell in Cornwall was only about one inch and three quarters
+long; an inch, or in some parts an inch and a quarter broad; and between
+half an inch, and three quarters of an inch thick. And its weight was
+near an ounce.--How much more tremendous then were those others, that
+have been described as having fallen in France?--the accounts of some of
+them may very probably have been exaggerated: but the reality was
+nevertheless as wonderful, surely, as any thing related concerning the
+ages of antiquity.
+
+A proneness to credulity is ever blameable. And it is very possible,
+that sometimes, in a very wonderful narration, a jest may be intended to
+be palmed upon the world, instead of any elucidation of truth.--But
+facts, _positively affirmed_, should be hearkened to with patience: and,
+at least, so far recorded, as to give an opportunity of verifying
+whether similar events do afterwards happen; and of comparing such
+events one with another.
+
+To what has been said, therefore, concerning the fall of stones in
+Tuscany, and concerning these strange showers of hail, in France, and in
+England, it might perhaps too justly be deemed an unwarrantable
+omission, on this occasion, not to mention the very strange fact that
+is affirmed to have happened the last year, near _the Wold Cottage_ in
+Yorkshire.
+
+I leave the fact to rest on the support of the testimonies referred to
+in the printed paper, which is in so many persons' hands; and that is
+given to those who have the curiosity to examine the stone itself, now
+exhibiting in London;--and shall only relate the substance of the
+account shortly, as it is given to us.
+
+In the afternoon of the 13th of December, 1795, near the Wold Cottage,
+noises were heard in the air, by various persons, like the report of a
+pistol; or of guns at a distance at sea; though there was neither any
+thunder or lightning at the time:--two distinct concussions of the earth
+were said to be perceived:--and an hissing noise, was also affirmed to
+be heard by other persons, as of something passing through the air;--and
+a labouring man plainly saw (as we are told) that something was so
+passing; and beheld a stone, as it seemed, at last, (about ten yards, or
+thirty feet, distant from the ground) descending, and striking into the
+ground, which flew up all about him: and in falling, sparks of fire,
+seemed to fly from it.
+
+Afterwards he went to the place, in company with others; who had
+witnessed part of the phaenomena, and dug the stone up from the place,
+where it was buried about twenty-one inches deep.
+
+It smelt, (as it is said,) very strongly of sulphur, when it was dug up:
+and was even warm, and smoked:--it was found to be thirty inches in
+length, and twenty-eight and a half inches in breadth. And it weighed
+fifty-six pounds.
+
+Such is the account.--I affirm nothing.--Neither do I pretend either
+absolutely to believe: or to disbelieve.--I have not an opportunity to
+examine the whole of the evidence.--But it may be examined: and so I
+leave it to be.
+
+This, however, I will say: that _first_ I saw a fragment of this stone;
+which had come into the hands of Sir Charles Blagden, from the Duke of
+Leeds: and afterwards I saw the stone itself.--That it plainly had a
+dark, black crust; with several concave impressions on the outside,
+which must have been made before it was quite hardened; just like what
+is related concerning the crusts of those stones that fell in
+Italy.--That its substance was not _properly_ of a _granite kind_, as
+described in the printed paper; but a sort of _grit stone_; composed
+(somewhat like the stones said to have fallen in Italy) of sand and
+ashes.--That it contained very many particles, obviously of the
+appearance of gold, and silver, and iron; (or rather more truly of
+_pyrites_).--That there were also several small rusty specks; probably
+from decomposed pyrites;--and some striated marks;--that it does not
+effervesce with acids;--and that, as far as I have ever seen, or known,
+or have been able to obtain any information, no _such_ stone has ever
+been found, before this time, in Yorkshire; or in any part of England.
+Nor can I easily conceive that such a species of stone could be formed,
+by art, to impose upon the public.
+
+Whether, therefore, it might, or might not, possibly be the effect of
+ashes flung out from _Heckla_, and wafted to England; like those flung
+out from Vesuvius, and (as I am disposed to believe) wafted to Tuscany,
+I have nothing to affirm.
+
+I wish to be understood to preserve mere records, the full authority for
+which, deserves to be investigated more and more.
+
+Having, nevertheless, gone so far as to say thus much; I ought to add,
+that the memorial of such sort of large stones having fallen from the
+clouds is still preserved also in Germany.
+
+For one is recorded to have fallen in _Alsace_, in the midst of a storm
+of hail, November 29th, A. D. 1630;[DD] which is said to be preserved in
+the great church of _Anxissem_: and to be like a large dark sort of
+flint-stone; having its surface operated upon by fire: and to be of very
+many pounds weight.
+
+And another is said to be still preserved at Vienna.
+
+This last is described by _Abbe Stutz_, Assistant in the Imperial
+cabinet of curiosities at Vienna, in a book printed in German, at
+_Leipsyc_, in 1790: entitled _Bergbaukimde_ (or _the Science of
+Mining_.)
+
+After describing two other stones, said to have fallen from the clouds:
+one in the _Eichstedt_ country in Germany; and another in the _Bechin_
+circle, in Bohemia, in July, 1753; concerning the _real_ falling of
+which he had expressed some doubts; he proceeds to describe the falling
+of two, (whereof this was one,) not far from _Agram_, the capital of
+_Croatia_, in Hungary; which caused him to change his opinion; and to
+believe, that the falling of such stones from heaven, was very possible.
+
+His words, fairly translated,[EE] in the beginning of his narrative,
+are, "These accounts put me in mind of a mass of iron, weighing
+seventy-one pounds, which was sent to the imperial collection of natural
+curiosities: about the origin of which _many mouths have been distorted
+with scoffing laughter_. If, in the _Eichstedt_ specimen, the effects of
+fire appear _tolerably_ evident; they are, in this, not to be
+mistaken.--Its surface is full of spherical impressions, like the mass
+of iron, which the celebrated _Pallas_ found on the Jenisei river;
+except that here the impressions are larger, and less deep; and it
+wants both the yellow glass, which fills up the hollows of the
+_Siberian_ iron; and the _sand stone_, which is found in the _Eichstedt_
+specimen; the whole mass being solid, compact, and black, like hammered
+iron."
+
+And his words in the end of the narrative are,
+
+"There is a great step from the disbelief of tales, to the finding out
+the true cause of a phaenomenon which appears wonderful to us. And
+probably I should have committed the fault into which we so naturally
+fall, respecting things we cannot explain; and have rather denied the
+whole history, than have determined to believe any thing _so
+incredible_; if various new writings, on electricity, and thunder, had
+not fortunately, at that time come into my hands; concerning remarkable
+experiments of reviving _metallic calces_ by the electric spark.
+Lightning is an electrical stroke on a large scale.--If then the
+reduction of iron can be obtained, by the discharge of an electrical
+machine; why should not this be accomplished as well, and with much
+greater effect by the very powerful discharge of the lightning of the
+clouds?"
+
+The substance of the account of the fall of stones, in Hungary, as given
+by him, after the most accurate inquiries, is what I shall now add in
+the following abridged detail; and it was verified by _Wolfgang
+Kukulyewich, Spiritual vicar of Francis Baron Clobuschiczky, Bishop of
+Agram_, who caused seven eye witnesses to be examined, concerning the
+actual falling of these stones on the 26th of May, 1751;--which
+witnesses were ready to testify all they affirmed, upon oath,--and one
+of them was Mr. George Marsich, Curate, as we should call him, of the
+parish.
+
+According to their accounts; about six o'clock, in the afternoon of the
+day just mentioned, there was seen towards the east, a kind of fiery
+ball; which, after it had burst into two parts, with a great report,
+exceeding that of a cannon, fell from the sky, in the form, and
+appearance of _two chains_ entangled in one another:--and also with a
+loud noise, as of a great number of carriages rolled along. And after
+this a black smoke appeared; and a part of the ball seemed to fall in an
+arable field of one _Michael Koturnass_; on the fall of which to the
+ground a still greater noise was heard; and a shock perceived, something
+like an earthquake.
+
+This piece was afterwards soon dug out of the ground; which had been
+particularly noted to be plain and level, and ploughed just before; but
+where it was now found to have made a great fissure, or cleft, an ell
+wide, whilst it singed the earth on the sides.
+
+The other piece, which fell in a meadow, was also dug up; and weighed
+sixteen pounds.
+
+And it is fairly observed, that the unadorned manner in which the whole
+account from _Agram_ is written; the agreement of the different
+witnesses, who had no reason to accord in a lie; and the similarity of
+this history to that of the _Eichstedt_ stone; makes it at least very
+probable, that there was indeed something real, and worth notice, in the
+account.
+
+The _Eichstedt_ stone (somewhat like that said to have fallen so lately
+in Yorkshire) is described as having been composed of ash-grey sand
+stone, with fine grains intermixed all through it, partly of real native
+iron, and partly of yellowish brown ochre of iron: and as being about as
+hard as building stone.--It is said not to effervesce with acids, and
+evidently to consist of small particles of siliceous stone and iron.--It
+had also a solid malleable coat of native iron, as was supposed, quite
+free from sulphur, and about two lines thick; which quite covered its
+surface; resembling a blackish glazing. And the whole mass exhibited
+evident marks of having been exposed to fire.
+
+A plain testimony of the falling of this was affirmed to be, produced as
+follows; that a labourer, at a brick-kiln, in winter, when the earth was
+covered with snow, saw it fall down out of the air immediately after a
+violent clap of thunder;--and that he instantly ran up to take it out of
+the snow; but found he could not do so, on account of its heat; and was
+obliged therefore to wait, to let it cool. That it was about half a foot
+in diameter; and was entirely covered with a black coat like iron.[FF]
+
+And I must now add that there is a record;[GG] that stones, to the
+number of some hundreds, did once fall in the neighbourhood of a place
+called _Abdua_; which were very 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 phaenomena; 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'Academie 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 phaenomena:--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 deg. in length, was of a duskish red, burst
+in the atmosphere, when the head was about 7 deg. above the horizon, and
+disappeared; and in the room thereof were seen three bodies like stars,
+within the compass of a little more than three degrees from the head,
+which also kept descending with the head.
+
+That before this, in another place, near Ancram in Scotland, (where the
+same meteor was seen) one-third of the tail, towards the extremity,
+appeared _to break off_, and to separate into sparks, resembling
+stars.--That soon after this the body of the meteor had its light
+extinguished, with an explosion; but, as it seemed to the observer
+there, _the form of the entire figure of the body, quite black, was
+seen to go still forwards in the air_.[MM] By some persons, also, an
+hissing noise[NN] was apprehended to be heard.
+
+Whether this might, or might not be an ignited body, of the kind we have
+been describing, falling to the earth, deserves consideration. Sir John
+Pringle seems to have been convinced that it was really _a solid
+substance_; but fairly adds,[OO] that if such meteors had really ever
+fallen to the earth, there must have been, long ago, so strong evidence
+of the fact, as to leave no room to doubt.
+
+Perhaps, in the preceding accounts, we have such evidence, _now_ fairly
+collected together; at least in a certain degree.
+
+I take all the facts, just as I find them affirmed. I have preserved a
+faithful and an honest record.
+
+For the sake of possible philosophical use;--let the philosophical, and
+curious just preserve these facts in remembrance.
+
+For the sake of philological advantage;--let the discerning weigh, and
+judge. For (if such things be,) what has so often come to pass,
+according to what is commonly called _the usual course of nature_; may
+most undoubtedly, henceforth, without any hesitating doubts, be believed
+to have been brought to pass, on an extraordinary occasion, in a still
+more tremendous manner, by the immediate _fiat of the Almighty_.
+
+Let no man scoff; lest he drives away the means of real
+information.--And let all men _watch_, for the increase of science.--
+
+The wisdom and power of God are far above not only the first
+apprehensions, but even the highest ideas of man. And our truest wisdom,
+and best improvement of knowledge, consist in searching out, and in
+attending diligently, to what he has actually done: ever bearing in
+mind those words of the holy Psalmist.[PP]
+
+"_The works of The Lord are great: sought out of all them that have
+pleasure therein._
+
+"_The Lord hath so done his marvellous works, that they ought to be
+had in remembrance._"
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+Since these sheets were printed, I have received from Sir Charles
+Blagden, a present of one of the very small stones mentioned, p. 7, that
+are affirmed to have fallen in Tuscany; and which has very lately been
+brought carefully from Italy.
+
+Its figure plainly indicates, that in the instant of its formation,
+there was a strong effort towards crystallization. For it is an
+irregular quadrilateral pyramid;--whose base, an imperfect kind of
+square, has two of its adjoining sides about six-tenths of an inch long,
+each; and the other two, each about five-tenths: whilst two of the
+triangular sides of the pyramid, are about six-tenths, on every side of
+each triangle, all of which are a little curved: and the other two
+triangular sides, are only five-tenths on the sides where these two last
+join.
+
+Its black crust, or coating, is such as has been described in the
+preceding pages: and is also remarkable, for the appearance of a sort of
+minute chequer work, formed by very fine white lines on the black
+surface.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+[A] In his Anatomy of Plants, p. 41-184.
+
+[B] Vol. LXIII. p. 241--and Vol. LXIX. p. 35.
+
+[C] In the Morsels of Criticism, p. 103.
+
+[D] In the Philos. Trans. for 1795, p. 91, 92.
+
+[E] This is mentioned by Sir William Hamilton himself, p. 105.
+
+[F] See Philos. Trans. for 1795, p. 104, 105.
+
+[G] See Lowthorp's Abridgement of the Philos. Trans. Vol. II. p. 143.
+
+[H] Philos. Trans. Vol. XLIX. p. 510.
+
+[I] Philos. Trans. Vol. LIII. p. 54.
+
+[J] Condamine's Journal, p. 57.
+
+[K] In his Experiments, p. 35.
+
+[L] Pyramidographia, Vol. I. 89-91.
+
+[M] Lib. 5.
+
+[N] Lib. 2.
+
+[O] In his Corinthiaca.
+
+[P] Clem. Alex. lib. 1.--Stromatum.
+
+[Q] In Vita Lysandri.
+
+[R] Diogenes in Anaxag.
+
+[S] Historia Nat. lib. 2. cap. 59.
+
+[T] Lib. 1. Sec. 31.
+
+[U] Haud aliter quam quum grandinem venti glomeratam in terras agunt,
+crebri cecidere coelo lapides.
+
+[V] Lib. 30. Sec. 28.
+
+[W] Lib. 34. Sec. 45.
+
+[X] Psalm 18. v. 13.
+
+[Y] Psalm 148. v. 8.
+
+[Z] Psalm 147. v. 17.
+
+[AA] Psalm 148. v. 8.
+
+[BB] Joshua, ch. 10. v. 11.
+
+[CC] Hooke's Experiments, p. 134.
+
+[DD] Vide Gesner.--and Ans de Boot Hist. Lapidum.
+
+[EE] For which translation I am obliged to Sir Charles Blagden.
+
+[FF] This account, from Abbe _Stutz_, and the following from Dr.
+_Chladni_, I received, translated from the German, by the favour of Sir
+Charles Blagden.
+
+[GG] Vide Cardan _De Variet_, lib. 14. c. 72.
+
+[HH] An account of this stone is given by Dr. Halley in the
+Philosophical Trans. No. 341. And also there is an account of it by
+Montenari.
+
+[II] Essai de Physique, Tom. II. sect. 1557.
+
+[JJ] All these facts are to be found mentioned in Chladni's book; first
+at p. 8, and then from p. 34 to 37.
+
+[KK] See the full account in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LI.
+for 1759, p. 218, &c.
+
+[LL] This is according to the account sent by the Rev. Mr. Michell,
+Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, p. 223.
+
+[MM] Ib. p. 237, 265, 269.
+
+[NN] Ib. p. 265.
+
+[OO] Ib. p. 272.
+
+[PP] Psalm III. v. 2 and 4.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have
+Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times, by Edward King
+
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