Part 5

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.

And I must now add that there is a record; 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, 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, 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.

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.

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; 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. By some persons, also, an hissing noise 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, 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.