| 389 attention to it; but he insisted, and told them if they would come, he would show it to them on the ground. They went and found the ground strewed with what appeared to them to be pieces of meat, varying from the size of an ounce ball to larger than a hen's egg. These pieces were very moist, and as red as blood or any thing else could make them; and the grass, cotton, or whatever they came in contact with, was stained as with blood. They were scattered several feet apart, over a space of ground some twenty or thirty yards in width; and they examined it for something like fifty yards in length, but did not go to the end of it.
I was informed of it yesterday, and went in company of two gentlemen, to visit the place in person. We were so lucky as to find some of the articles still remaining, and all agree that it had the appearance of flesh, of the finest mould [mold], much finer than we had ever seen before. Some of the pieces seemed to be entirely fat, but most of it lean, very red, and somewhat transparent when held up toward the light, but it was considerably dried when I saw it, having lain twenty-four hours.
The younger Wm. Inlow, a very intelligent and credible youth of fourteen, says he first heard a few scattering peaces fall, and looking up, saw the air darkened with them; and that it looked something like snow falling slowly, when the flakes are far apart; but that the pieces fell more rapidly. The shower fell about the middle of the day, while the sun was shining, and a few light clouds were in the atmosphere; but nothing visible could be assigned as the cause of the phenomena."
SINGULAR PHENOMENON.
Mr. James Arlington Bennet has written an interesting and curious letter to the Commercial Advertiser respecting several meteors he has noted during the last year. Respecting the first he says:
'Being near the sea shore some years ago, in the month of August, I observed a bright meteor descending right in front of me, almost in a perpendicular line, and not, to appearance, three rods distant, and being between me and the sea it maintained its light until it almost touched the ground. A light shock instantly struck my ear as though something had fallen. I approached the spot, but there being only star light could see nothing. On feeling the ground, however, I stuck my finger into something soft, which I found to have a most peculiar fetid smell, like something I had never met with in the laboratory or any where else. Next morning I examined the place and found about two pounds of brown jelly, which had descended in globular form, but had been broken by the fall and formed a small segment of a sphere. Having no means of either weighing or analysing [analyzing] this matter, I passed it by with the conjecture that it was the substance which forms these meteors or falling stars. The altitude of this meteor could not be more than one hundred yards.'
The next fell in the pail of his milk-maid, depositing the same kind of jelly without her observing its fall. The only effect of the shock was to throw the pail a little on one side.
'The third that presented itself was about the latter end of July, last year. Having gone toward the stable between 11 and 12 o'clock, of a very clear night, I noticed all of a sudden that the east end of the coach-house presented a brilliant light, and turning to look for the cause, a most splendid meteor, which had run nearly half its course, leaving a brilliant streak of light after it, was descending directly towards me, on an angle of about 45 degrees, when it immediately ceased to shine. 'There goes another jelly,' I said to myself, 'which I must hunt up in the morning."
Mr. Bennet marked the spot where it fell, and next morning proceeded with a lad to find it. It had fallen farther off than he expected, and he says:
I passed four fields without success, when at the lower end of the fifth field, a piece of meadow land, full half a mile from where I stood, to my wonder and admiration I discovered a little on the right of the line of search, a body of dark brown jelly, exactly like one side of a convex lens, three feet in diameter, but broken into many pieces by the fall. The stench was most insufferable. This body of jelly before it fell must have formed a globe of from ten to twelve inches in diameter, if not more. This jelly, which lay on the spot where it fell until the 12th of September following, entirely destroyed all the grass under and near it. Now I think that the base line of a right angle triangle at double the distance from where I stood, and this meteor having its formation at the head of the perpendicular, its altitude must be counted at least one mile, as its downward course would trace the hypothenuse (hypotenuse) of the same triangle for some distance.
I put a piece of this jelly on the coals, the odor from which drove the servants from the kitchen. There arose neither flame nor smoke, yet it extinguished the coals where it lay. Being very busy at the time, I did not attempt to determine its constituents. Its fracture was not, however, like that of jelly, but it appeared to break into cubes.
There is a possibility of this meteor having had its origin much higher in the atmosphere
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