WONDERFUL AEROLITE IN AMERICA.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 647, 14 January 1869, Page 4

WONDERFUL AEROLITE IN AMERICA.

The Nashville Press relates that a strange and terrible spectacle has been witnessed in Cheatham County, on the line of the Nashville and NorthWestern Bailroad. About one o'clock, while the men employed on the plantation of Joshua Fulgham were going into a field to pluck fodder, the sun being hidden behind the clouds at the time, and a general gloom pervading the sky, they were much frightened and confused by the apparent opening of the clouds, judging from the description of the phenomenon, not more than five or six degrees north of the zenith. They judge the cloud to be about three quarters of a mile high. The strange sight attracted their notice. A brilliant whitish-red glare overspread an immense mass of black clouds, on the centre of which appeared a funnel-like aperture about four or five feet in diameter, the sides of which presented the appearance of ragged flames darting like fiery tongues, and licking and lapping at a large white object passing with inconceivable rapidity down through the apperture. When it left the mass of cloud it did not appear to fall perpendicularly, but sloped at an inclination of some ten or fifteen degrees from a plumb line, and grew more intensely bright as it approached the earth. It swept down like a bright angel of death and destruction. It struck the earth with a sound like a sudden terrific clap of thunder, and seemed to make the surrounding hills quiver to their foundations. Great numbers of trees on their rocky sides fell and continued falling for several minutes afterwards, making noises like prolonged reverberations of thunder among rocky cliffs. The men were about four hundred yards from the place where the fiery missile from the sky struck, and were afraid to go and examine the place for several hours afterwards. The} took courage, however, and being joined by numbers of the people living in the surrounding neighborhood, they proceeded to the place, and found that it had struck upon a flat ledge of rocks in a wagonway leading from a farm house to the public road. The fragments of stone were thrown round for several rods in all directions; the ledge which is 3 feet thick, without any seams, was disturbed for a distance of about 50 feet; split and torn up in fragments; the soil, which was spread in thin layers all over it, looked as if passed through a sieve.

At the point where the strange body came in contact with the rock there appeared to be no stone at all, but a very fine, white, floury paste, which was quite hot, and a steam ascended out of the hole in which it had buried itself which was too hot to approach. A coriespondent of the Nashville Pres 9 says the place where it struck remained hot for three days; but a copious shower of rain having fallen, which temporarily swelled the streams and water-courses, a large flood poured down on the place from the neighboring hill, sending up a constant and immense column of steam. The earth around the place for several yards was quite hot. This gave us the idea that the aerolite which had struck must be of great size. The column of iteam continued to ascend all night, and sented a weird spectacle amid the gloom and in the silent depths of the ■woods. It could be seeen from the surrounding hills like a tall ghost, changing its position at times, and its form, and gradually, as morning approached, melting away in the light of the rising sun. At ten or eleven o'clock that day we organised a squad of about ten men, with drills and other quarrying tools, and commenced the ■work of excavation. We found great numbers of rents and cracks in the jocks as we descended. Not much powder was needed after the first blast. "We did not propose to work round the hole, but began five or six yards away from the lips of the orifice, and continued to work on that side alone; ■when we reached a depth of about 26 feet we came $o the aerolite, or mass of metal, still hot and covered with a slight film or coating of oxide. It is wedge-shaped, the heavy end being upward. We cannot account for this except on the supposition that it was globular as it descended; but the contact with so dense a body as a mass of insestoue, while ia a soft condition,

pushed backward the mass as it passed through, and gave it the cone-shape which it has. It had passed entirely through the ledge of limestone, Pnri was imbedded in a stratum of bluish, tough, putty-like clay, very closely packed, and impervious to water, This bed of clay or marl runs sloping up the hill, to what extent of distance I don't know, but at the point where the excavation was made it has that iaclination. The aerolite we found 4 o measure about seven feet from apex to base, and at the greatest circumference about ten feet round. It is specifically very heavy, and the lump cannot weigh less than five or six tons.