He adds, also, that in the 31st Essay of the Breslau Collections, p. 44, is found an account by Dr. _Rost_; that on the 22d of June, 1723, about two o'clock in the afternoon, in the country of Pleskowicz, some miles from _Reichstadt_, in Bohemia, a small cloud was seen, the sky being otherwise clear; whereupon, at one place twenty-five, at another eight, great and small stones fell down, with a loud report, and without any lightning being perceived. The stones appeared externally black, internally like a metallic ore, and smelt strongly of brimstone.
And I shall conclude all _Chladni_'s remarkable facts, in addition to those which I had myself collected, before ever I heard of his curious book, with a short summary of what he calls one of the _newest_ accounts of this kind, extracted from the _Histoire de l'Académie des Sciences_, 1769, p. 20.
It is an account of three masses, which fell down with thunder, in provinces very distant from one another; and which were sent to the Academy in 1769. They were sent from _Maine_, _Artois_, and _Cotentin_: and it is affirmed, that when they fell an hissing was heard; and that they were found hot. All three were like one another; all three were of the same colour, and nearly of the same grain; and small metallic and pyritical particles could be distinguished in them; and, externally, all three were covered with an hard ferruginous coat: and, on chemical investigation, they were found to contain iron, and sulphur.[JJ]
Considering, then, all these facts so positively affirmed, concerning these various, most curious phænomena:--the explosions;--the sparks;--the lights;--the hissing noises;--the stones seen to fall;--the stones dug up hot, and even smoking;--and some scorching, and even burning other bodies in their passage;--we cannot but also bring to remembrance, what Sir John Pringle affirmed to have been observed; concerning a fiery meteor, seen on Sunday, the 26th of November, 1758, in several parts of England and Scotland.[KK]
That the head, which appeared about half the diameter of the moon, was of a bright white, like iron when almost in a melting heat;[LL] the tail, which appeared about 8° in length, was of a duskish red, burst in the atmosphere, when the head was about 7° above the horizon, and disappeared; and in the room thereof were seen three bodies like stars, within the compass of a little more than three degrees from the head, which also kept descending with the head.