Part 3

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; 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.

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: 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.

And Hooke says, 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, on unquestionable authorities, that many others of the images of heathen deities were merely such.

Herodian expressly declares, 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, 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, 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 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 a stone which formerly fell from the clouds, in Thrace, and which Anaxagoras fancied 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, 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 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.

He mentions also shortly another shower of stones, A. C. 202, and still a third, 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, "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, we should be led to consider all these powerful operations, as the works of God; Who casteth forth his ice like morsels; and should be led to consider "fire and hail, snow and vapours, wind and storm as fulfilling his word;" 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, 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.