n, soda, and water, have also been found in small quantities, but
not in the same specimens. No substance with which chemists were
previously unacquainted, has ever been found in them; but no combination,
similar to that in meteoric stones, has ever been met with in geological
formations, or among the products of any volcano. They are sometimes
very friable, sometimes very hard; and some that are friable when they
first fall, become hard afterwards. When taken up soon after their fall
they are extremely hot. They vary in weight from two drams to several
hundred pounds. Meteoric stones have fallen in all climates, in every
part of the earth, at all seasons, in the night and in the day.

The meteoric stones already noticed, are not the only metallic bodies
which are supposed to fall from the sky. In many parts of the earth
masses of malleable iron, often of vast size, have been found. An
immense mass seen by Pallas, in Siberia, was discovered at a great height
on a mountain of slate, near the river Jenesei. The Tartars held it in
great veneration, as having fallen from heaven. It was removed in the
year 1749, to the town of Krasnojarsk, by the inspector of iron mines.
The mass, which weighed about 1,400 pounds, was irregular in form, and
cellular, like a sponge. The iron was tough and malleable, and was found
to contain nickel, silica, magnesia, sulphur, and chrome. Another
enormous mass of meteoric iron was found in South America, about the year
1788. It lay in a vast plain, half sunk in the ground, and was supposed,
from its size and the known weight of iron, to contain upwards of
thirteen tons. Specimens of this mass are now in the British Museum, and
have been found to contain 90 per cent. of iron and 10 of nickel. Many
other masses of iron might be mentioned, which, from the places in which
they are found, and from their composition, leave no doubt as to their
being of meteoric origin. The only instance, on record, of iron having
been actually seen to fall from the atmosphere, is that which took place
at Agram in Croatia, on the 26th May, 1751. About six o'clock in the
evening, the sky being quite clear, a ball of fire was seen, which shot
along, with a hollow noise, from west to east, and, after a loud
explosion accompanied by a great smoke, two masses of iron fell from it
in the form of chains welded together.

It is, perhaps, impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to
account for the ori