From the Journal of Commerce.
On Friday, December 25, 1846, at about 2 P. M. a noise was heard in the environs of Midenthal, (Germany) in a circumference of 18 leagues in diameter, resembling in the first instant a distant cannonade. After 20 almost uniform discharges, this noise changed almost to a rumbling, the sound of which strinckingly resembled those of a kettle drum taned in F, and ended with sounds like those of distant trumpets. The whole phenomenon lasted about three minutes, and was heard in the same manner throughout the entire district. Every auditor imagined that he heard the noise over his own head, but nothing was seen explanatory of the phenomenon. In the village of Schoenberg, however, west of Midenthal, several persons dicovered above the house a black ball rapidly descending, and a man saw this fall into a garden ? The news of the event soon spread abroad, and all the inhabitants, abandoning their firesides and family festivities ran to the spot pointed out. They found an opening in the earth which emitted a sulphurous vapor. On digging with great zeal, a stone was discovered two feet below the surface, in the form of a regular truncated pyramid with four narrow lateral surfaces, and a fifth somewhat wider. The base is smooth enough. The summit is prismatic, and the corners and rounded. It weights almost eight Kilograms. Its dimensions are eight inches in height, seven in breadth, and three in thickness. The fracture is greyish-white, spotted with white, and several chrystalized metellic fragments were noticed upon its surface, especially some octahedral chrystals of iron, which attracted the magnet.
The above is the account given of the phenomenon to the editor of the Augsburgh Gazette. A body of similar composition is described by M. Arago, in a communication to the Academy of Sciences, that fell in a district in France, in 1841, and was heard at great distance; and the sound which followed the lat of the several explosions was quite musical. That learned astronomer denominated the extraordinary sound the music of the spheres. A large stone was seen to fall and was exhumed from the field while yet warm. Fragments of this body were scattered in a path of 16 miles wide and 60 miles long. I have detailed particular accounts of three other aerolites which have fallen to the earth the present year.