5. 1511, September 14th. At noon an almost total darkening of the heavens occurred at Crema. "During this midnight gloom," says a writer of that period, "unheard-of thunders, mingled with awful lightnings, resounded through the heavens. * * * On the plain of Crema, where never before was seen a stone the size of an egg, there fell pieces of rock of enormous dimensions and of immense weight. It is said that ten of these were found weighing a hundred pounds each." A monk was struck dead at Crema by one of these rocky fragments. This terrific meteoric display is said to have lasted two hours, and 1200 aerolites were subsequently found.
6. 1637, November 29th. A stone, weighing fifty-four pounds, fell on Mount Vaison, in Provence.
7. 1650, March 30th. A Franciscan monk was killed at Milan by the fall of a meteoric stone.
8. 1674. Two Swedish sailors were killed on ship-board by the fall of an aerolite.
9. 1686, July 19th. An extraordinary fire-ball was seen in England; its motion being opposite to that of the earth in its orbit. Halley pronounced this meteor a cosmical body. (See Philos. Transact., vol. xxix.)
10. 1706, June 7th. A stone weighing seventy-two pounds fell at Larissa, in Macedonia.
11. 1719, March 19th. Another great meteor was seen in England. Its explosion occurred at an elevation of 69 miles. Notwithstanding its height, however, the report was like that of a broadside, and so great was the concussion that windows and doors were violently shaken.
12. 1751, May 26th. Two meteoric masses, consisting almost wholly of iron, fell near Agram, the capital of Croatia. The larger fragment, which weighs seventy-two pounds, is now in Vienna.
13. 1756. The concussion produced by a meteoric explosion threw down chimneys at Aix, in Provence, and was mistaken for an earthquake.
14. 1771, July 17th. A large meteor exploded near Paris, at an elevation of 25 miles.