om their houses in the firm belief that they must fall
upon them. It soon became apparent that this was not the case. The first
report, which was far louder in its discharge than any volley of
artillery, was quickly followed by another and another, to the number of
fourteen or sixteen. Most of the latter reports grew gradually less and
less loud. These were probably but the reverberations of the former, not
among the hills, but among the clouds, just as is the case with thunder.
It was difficult to say which were the reports and which the echoes.
There could certainly not have been fewer than four or five actual
reports. During the time that the sound lasted the ground trembled and
shook convulsively. From the different accounts of three eyewitnesses
there appears to have been observed a flame of fire, described as about 2
ft. in depth and 9 ft. in length, darting in an oblique direction above
the station after the first explosion had taken place. The stones as they
fell buried themselves from 1 ft. to 11/2 ft. in the ground, sending up a
cloud of dust in all directions. Most providentially, no loss of life or
property has occurred. Some coolies, passing by where one fell, ran to
the spot to pick up the pieces; before they had held them in their hands
half a minute they had to drop them, owing to the intensity of the cold,
which benumbed their fingers. This, considering the fact that they were
apparently but a moment before in a state of ignition, is very
remarkable. Each stone that fell bore unmistakable marks of partial
fusion."
Several meteors were seen at Dhurmsala on the evening of the same day.
Dr. C.T. Jackson analyzed a portion of one meteorite weighing 41/2 oz.; the
piece was 21/2 in. long, 11/4 in. wide, and 1 in. in average thickness. In
the course of his report he stated: "Its specific gravity is 3.456 at 68
deg. Fahr., barom. 29.9. Its structure is imperfectly granular, but not
crystallized, and there are small black specks of the size of a pin's
head, and smaller, of malleable meteoric iron, which are readily removed
from the crushed stone by the magnet. The color of the mass is ash gray.
A portion of the surface is black and is scarified by fusion. Its
hardness is not superior to that of olivine or massive chrysolite.
Chemical analysis shows that its composition is that of a ferruginous
olivine. One gramme of the stone, crushed in an agate mortar, and acted
on by a magnet, yielded 0.43 gramme of meteori
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