Litchfield enquirer., 1835-08-20
TECTURES ON GEOLOGY. 0.l,u,rrS as SsIsn, Mass. by PUetsssor Si''i"a"'
 

K.sr.6.etOrv Leciure.-On Thursday eve
 ,;,- aOfh April, at the CfOmhie street church.
 ProisssOr SilIiman gave public lecture to
 ~.sSn crowded and mt less interested and de- IirF,ted audience. His specific topic was me- tcI,ric stOnes and iron. He remarked at the heginuing tl1at the science Ot nIeteOr0I0gy em- hrscsd al the phenOmena Of the atmosphere Such as the fiery appearances pr ignis tatnl' easeous cxhalaiiODs, lightning. aurora borea- lis, and aurora australis, shooting stars. and l rnateoric stones. Shooting stars he said were | much more frequent OccMrrences than we
 were dispOsed to believe. They generally ap- 1 pear in the night when the world is # rest'-- few years since, in . town in Germany. 100 were seen in the course oftwo hours; and not long afterwards TAO were seen within the same short period. They were represented as very 1atge, sometimes 100, laO. and 14O feet in di- aMGter. a
 Respecting mcteoric stones the Professor said he could speak with, precision and au- lhoriiy. The fact that they fall to the earth is beyond dispute. They are solid ignited
 balls, composed of stone ar iron as the princi-
 pal ingredients. What was once consider ed
 fabulous. is now believed to be real fact. The
 image that was said to have fallen down from
 Jupiter, and that is alluded to in the New
 Testament, is supposed to have been mete-
 oric stone. The fact of its having fallen from
 tho heavens, made it an object of adoration
 to the hcathen. In the year 465 before Christ,
 a stone fell at the foot of fPinda. and was car
 ried to Rome to be worshipped. At . some
 what later period stones are known to have
 fallen iO China.
 sIn lf9s of the christian era, showers of
 iron fell Germany. Likewise in l494, large
 fire balls were seen in a town in Germany.
 explosions like thunder were heard, and stones
 felk one of which weighed 260 pounds. This
 was broken, and fragment was suspended
 in a church, where it remained till the French
 Revolution. In 1920, the year of the landing
 of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a luminous body of irnn fell in part of the empire of Mogul.
 It was intensely heated, like iron taken out
 ofa furnace; sabrcs, knives. and dsggers were made of at the command of the Emperor,
 whicfJcould not De done, however, till com mon iron in the proportion of one third was mingled with the neteoric substance.
 In l751, fire ball was seen in town iD
 Germany, and bursting into pieces, the frag- penetrated three feet into the earth. In l794, . shower of stones fell at Siena. Italy, during thunder storm. In 1888. at Ausferliiz, a
 fire bali appeared of great size and beauty it was too bright to be looked upon by the eye; and it was attended with several loud explosions. s-
 The Professor then mentioned few simi- lar occurrences that have been witnessed in the United States. T
 In fsiO, ia Caswell County, North Caro-. iina, stones fell with loud ex plosions. In 1898, they fell in Maine in 1893, in Maryi land. they tellat midday; ip 1897, at Nashville, Ten. nessee, they fell wifh loud reports, several Of them weighing 5ponnds each; in 1899, they fell in Georgia. one of So pounds weight. sss' sa Mir. Silliman gave more particular des- eription ofa lire ball that appeared on the l4th of December. 18O7. Itwas seen in this town as the farthest point eastward, and a, Maryland, the farthest point westward being large and brilliant enough to be distinguished through space of more than three hundred miles. 1t exploded and fellin Weston, Conn. Its fragments were discovered at distance often miles from each other; and one ofthem weighed two hundred pounds. f ,fyv tF
 Large masses of meieoric iron have been 1 found in various parts of the world, There 1 is one i0 the interior of Russia, of 1880 pounds { weight; another in Brazil, of IA, ,OOO pounds: l two pieces in Peru. one weighing so, ,oOO, the 1 other 8O.0OO.
 3 In Louisiana. up the Red River, there lies ! . mass of meteoFic iron, weighing about l7OO | pounds. Meteosic iron is .nallcable, which | distinguishes it from aII iron found in its native state in the mines 0n this globe. Iron ore, on being hammered. turns into powder. Me. teoric iron also contains a small portion of nickel, which is never found in our native iron.
 The Lecturer then stated . few theories which have been devised to explain the ori- gin of these bodies. One is that they are of substances collected out of the ltsnosphere. lt was sufficient to say of this, hat from the most careful and numerous a. , ,slyses of the atmosphere. nothing like what /, hese bodies contain, has ever been found.- Besides, there is no power in the air to bring . Ogethes so large bodies ss these, which are i sometimes quarter or a half mile in diam 1 tier. as they pass through the heavens.
 Another theory is. that these stones are :. brown from terrestrial volcanoes. To this ; here gre insuperable ohjecfions'; such as the act that the composition of these stones is un. ike volcanic productions; and Ibat they fall :, ? regions remoie from all volcanoes, where :. 70 p8wer Of Ktna 0r VeSDvins could ever :. uri them. Another theOry is, that they are ! i; 10)eeted from volcanoes in the Moou. Rut !: ls not possible that any force of lunar vol {" anO should send substances to this Globe.
 Brewster theOry is, that q large nlan.t lJ ,Dce OccOpying the spaee ir tho solar svassr, ,etween Mars and Jupiter, space now n . part filled by the small planets, Vesta. Juno. Ceres: and Pailas. has at some period of time , szPloded; :. of which some portions went so ;AHspose those small planets, and other nor. ions fe1i 10 ihe earth. "
 The last thsosy mentioned, and the one