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New Lands – Charles Fort

INDIA

Arcana of Science, 1829-196:

That, near Mhow, India, Feb. 27, 1828, fell a stone "perfectly similar" to the stone that fell near Allahabad, in 1802, and a stone that fell near Mooradabad, in 1808. These towns are in the Northwestern Provinces of India.

I have looked at specimens of these stones, and in my view they are similar. They are of brownish rock, streaked and spotted with a darker brown.

A stone that fell at Chandakopur, in the same general region, June 6, 1838, is like them. All are as much alike as "erratics" that, because they are alike, geologists ascribe to the same derivation, stationary relatively to the places in which they are found.

RUSSIA

In Comptes Rendus, 85-681

 is noted a succession of falls of stones in Russia:
June 12, 1863, at Buschof, Courland;
Aug. 8, 1863, at Pillitsfer, Livonia;
April 12, 1864, at Nerft, Courland.
Also—see Fletcher's List—a stone that fell at Dolgovdi, Volhynia, Russia, June 26, 1864.

I have looked at specimens of all four of these stones, and have found them all very much alike, but not of uncommon meteoritic material: all gray stones, but Pillitsfer is darker than the others, and in a polished specimen of Nerft, brownish specks are visible.

THE UK

In the Birmingham Daily Post, June 14, 1858,
Dr. C. Mansfield Ingleby, a meteorologist, writes: "During the storm on Saturday (12th) morning, Birmingham was visited by a shower of aerolites. Many hundreds of thousands must have fallen, some of the streets being strewn with them."
Someone else writes that many pounds of the stones had been gathered from awnings, and that they had damaged greenhouses, in the suburbs. In the Post, of the 15th, someone else writes that, according to his microscopic examinations, the supposed aerolites were only bits of the Rowley ragstone, with which Birmingham was paved, which had been washed loose by the rain.
It is not often that sentiment is brought into meteorology, but in the Report of the British Association, 1864-37, Dr. Phipson explains the occurrence meteorologically, and with an unconscious tenderness. He says that the stones did fall from the sky, but that they had been carried in a whirlwind from Rowley, some miles from Birmingham. So we are to sentimentalize over the stones in Rowley that had been torn, by unfeeling paviers, from their companions of geologic ages, and exiled to the pavements of Birmingham, and then some of these little bereft companions, rising in a whirlwind and traveling, unerringly, if not miraculously, to rejoin the exiles. More dark companions. It is said that they were little black stones.

La Science Pour Tous, June 19, 1860

They fell again from the sky, two years later. In La Science Pour Tous, June 19, 1860, it is said that, according to the Wolverhampton Advertiser, a great number of little black stones had fallen, in a violent storm, at Wolverhampton. According to all records findable by me no such stones have ever fallen anywhere in Great Britain, except at Birmingham and Wolverhampton, which is 13 miles from Birmingham.

English Mechanic, July 31, 1868

Eight years after the second occurrence, they fell again. English Mechanic, July 31, 1868—that stones "similar to, if not identical with the well-known Rowley ragstones" had fallen in Birmingham, having probably been carried from Rowley, in a whirlwind.

We were pleased with Dr. Phipson's story, but to tell of more of the little dark companions rising in a whirlwind and going unerringly from Rowley to rejoin the exiles in Birmingham is overdoing. That's not sentiment: that's mawkishness.

In the Birmingham Daily Post, May 30, 1868, is published a letter from Thomas Plant, a writer and lecturer upon meteorological subjects. Mr. Plant says, I think, that for one hour, morning of May 29, 1868, stones fell, in Birmingham, from the sky. His words may be interpretable in some other way, but it does not matter: the repeating falls are indication enough of what we're trying to find out—"From nine to ten, meteoric stones fell in immense quantities in various parts of town."
"They resembled, in shape, broken pieces of Rowley ragstone … in every respect they were like the stones that fell in 1858." In the Post, June 1, Mr. Plant says that the stones of 1858 did fall from the sky, and were not fragments washed out of the pavement by rain, because many pounds of them had been gathered from a platform that was 20 feet above the ground.

the Post, June 2

It may be that for days before and after May 29, 1868, occasional stones fell from some unknown region stationary above Birmingham.

In the Post, June 2, a correspondent writes that, upon the first of June, his niece, while walking in a field, was struck by a stone that injured her hand severely. He thinks that the stone had been thrown by some unknown person. In the Post, June 4, someone else writes that his wife, while walking down a lane, upon May 24th, had been cut on the head by a stone. He attributes this injury to stone-throwing by boys, but does not say that anyone had been seen to throw the stone.

Symons’ Met. Mag., 4-137: May 25, 1869

That, according to the Birmingham Gazette, a great number of small, black stones had been found in the streets of Wolverhampton, May 25, 1869, after a severe storm. It is said that the stones were precisely like those that had fallen in Birmingham, the year before, and resembled Rowley ragstone outwardly, but had a different appearance when broken.