borders of the
parish of Creon, they were found of a pound weight; and in falling, they
seemed not to be inflamed, but very hard and black without, and within
of the color of steel: and, thank God, they occasioned no harm to the
people, nor to the trees, but only to some tiles which were broken on
the houses; and most of them fell gently, and others fell quickly, with
a hissing noise; and some were found which had entered into the earth,
but very few. In witness thereof, we have written and signed these
presents. Duby, mayor. Darmite." Though such a document as this, coming
from the unlearned of the district where the phenomenon occurred, was
not calculated to win acceptance with the _savans_ of the French
capital, yet it was corroborated by a host of intelligent witnesses at
Bayonne, Thoulouse, and Bordeaux, and by transmitted specimens
containing the substances usually found in atmospheric stones, and in
nearly the same proportions. A few years afterward, an undoubted
instance of the fall of an aerolite occurred in England, which largely
excited public curiosity. This was in the neighborhood of Wold Cottage,
the house of Captain Topham, in Yorkshire. Several persons heard the
report of an explosion in the air, followed by a hissing sound; and
afterward felt a shock, as if a heavy body had fallen to the ground at a
little distance from them. One of these, a plowman, saw a huge stone
falling toward the earth, eight or nine yards from the place where he
stood. It threw up the mould on every side, and after penetrating
through the soil, lodged some inches deep in solid chalk rock. Upon
being raised, the stone was found to weigh fifty-six pounds. It fell in
the afternoon of a mild but hazy day, during which there was no thunder
or lightning; and the noise of the explosion was heard through a
considerable district. It deserves remark, that in most recorded cases
of the descent of projectiles, the weather has been settled, and the sky
clear; a fact which plainly places them apart from the causes which
operate to produce the tempest, and shows the popular term thunder-bolt
to be an entire misnomer.

While this train of circumstances was preparing the philosophic mind of
Europe to admit as a truth what had hitherto been deemed a vulgar error,
and acknowledge the appearance of masses of ignited matter in the
atmosphere occasionally descending to the earth, an account of a
phenomenon of this kind was received from India, vouche