Showers of nutritious substances have been recorded on good authority. We do not here refer to the manna which fell in such abundance about the Hebrew camp, for that was a miracle specially wrought by the Almighty for the preservation of his chosen people; but, it may be noticed here, that in Arabia, a substance, called “manna,” is found in great abundance on the leaves of many trees and herbs, and may be gathered and removed by the wind to a distance. A shower of this kind occurred in 1824. In 1828, a substance was exhibited at the French Academy, which fell in the plains of Persia. It was eaten, and afforded nourishment to cattle, and many other animals; and, on examination, proved to be a vegetable,—the Lichen esculentus,—which had been conveyed thither by the winds.
In the Minutes of the proceedings of the Royal Society, 26th June, 1661, we find the following curious narration:—
“Col. Tuke brought, in writing, the following brief account of the supposed rain of wheat, which was registered:—
“On the 30th of May, 1661, Mr. Henry Puckering, son to Sir Henry Puckering, of Warwick, brought some papers of seeds, resembling wheat, to the king, with a letter written by Mr. William Halyburton, dated the 27th May, from Warwick; out of which letter I have made this extract:
“‘Instead of news I send you some papers of wonders. On Saturday last, it was rumoured in this town, that it rained wheat at Tuchbrooke, a village about two miles from Warwick. Whereupon some of the inhabitants of this town went thither; where they saw great quantities on the way, in the fields, and on the leads of the church, castle, and priory, and upon the hearths of the chimneys in the chambers. And Arthur Mason, coming out of Shropshire, reports, that it hath rained the like in many places of that county. God make us thankful for this miraculous blessing, &.’”
“I brought some papers of these seeds, with this letter, to the Society of Gresham College; who would not enter into any consideration of it, till they were better informed of the matter of fact. Hereupon, I entreated Mr. Henry Puckering to write to the bailiff of the town of Warwick, to the ministers and physicians, to send us an account of the matter of fact, and their opinions of it. In the bailiff’s letter, dated the 3rd of June, I find this report verified; affirming that himself, with the inhabitants of the town, were in a great astonishment at this wonder. But, before the next day of our meeting, I sent for some ivy-berries, and brought them to Gresham College with some of these seeds resembling wheat; and taking off the outward pulp of the ivy-berries, we found in each of the berries four seeds; which were generally concluded by the Society to be the same with those that were supposed and believed by the common people to have been wheat that had been rained; and, that they were brought to those places, where they were found, by starlings; who, of all the birds that we know, do assemble in the greatest numbers; and do, at this time of the year, feed upon these berries; and digesting the outward pulp, they render these seeds by casting, as hawks do feathers and bones.”
The remarkable showers already noticed, have
excited much interest and inquiry among learned men, and many superstitious fears among the ignorant; but, there is another description of shower which affords a singular instance of popular observation, being greatly in advance of scientific knowledge. We allude to the showers of stones, called “aërolites,” (from two Greek words, signifying the atmosphere, and a stone); they are also called Meteorolites, or Meteoric stones.
Writers in all ages have mentioned instances of stony bodies having been seen to fall from the sky. The Chinese and Japanese carefully note down the most striking and remarkable phenomena of nature, believing them to have some connexion with public affairs; and the chronicles of these people are said to contain many notices of the fall of stony bodies from the sky. Until within the last fifty years, however, these accounts have been treated in Europe as idle superstitions; scientific men denying even the probability of such an occurrence. The first scientific man who was bold enough to support the popular opinion, that stones actually do fall from the sky, was Chladni, a German philosopher, who published a pamphlet on the subject in 1794. This did not excite
much attention, until, two years afterwards, a stone weighing fifty-six pounds was exhibited in London, which was said to have fallen in Yorkshire in the December of the preceding year; but, although the fact was attested by several respectable persons, the possibility of such an occurrence was still doubted. It was remarked, however, by Sir Joseph Banks, that this stone was very similar in appearance to one which had been sent to him from Italy, with an account of its having fallen from the clouds. In the year 1799, a number of stones were received by the Royal Society, from Benares, in the East Indies, which were also said to have fallen from the atmosphere, with a minute account of the circumstances attending the fall, which will be presently noticed; and, as these stones appeared to be precisely similar to the Yorkshire stone already noticed, attention was fairly drawn to the subject. In 1802, Mr. Howard published an analysis of a variety of these stones collected from different places; and his researches led to the important conclusion, that they are all composed of the same substances, and in nearly the same proportions. In 1803, a notice was received at Paris, of a shower of stones at L’Aigle in Normandy;
and the Institute of France deputed M. Biot, a well-known and excellent natural philosopher, to examine, on the spot, all the circumstances attending this remarkable event. His account will be noticed presently; but it may here be stated, that the stones he collected, on being analysed, gave results similar to those obtained by Mr. Howard.
The circumstances attending the fall of stones at Krakhut, a village about fourteen miles from the city of Benares, are briefly as follow:—On the 19th December, 1798, a very luminous meteor was observed in the heavens, about eight o’clock in the evening, in the form of a large ball of fire; it was accompanied by a loud noise, resembling that of thunder, which was immediately followed by the sound of the fall of heavy bodies. On examining the ground, it was observed to have been newly torn up in many places; and in these were found stones of a peculiar appearance, most of which had buried themselves to the depth of six inches. At the time the meteor appeared, the sky was perfectly serene, not the smallest vestige of a cloud had been seen since the 11th of the month; nor were any observed for many days
after. It was seen in the western part of the hemisphere, and was visible only a short time. The light from it was so great, as to cast a strong shadow from the bars of a window upon a dark carpet. Mr. Davis, the judge and magistrate of the district, affirmed, that in brilliancy it equalled the brightest moonlight. Both he and Mr. Erskine were induced to send persons in whom they could confide to the spot where this shower of stones is reported to have taken place, and thus obtained additional evidence of the phenomena, together with several of the stones which had penetrated about six inches into fields recently watered. Mr. Maclane, a gentleman who resided near Krakhut, presented Mr. Howard with a portion of a stone which had been brought to him the morning after its fall by the person who was on duty at his house, and through the roof of whose hut it had passed, and buried itself several inches in the floor, which was of consolidated earth. Before it was broken it must have weighed upwards of two pounds.