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In view of the relatively small number of meteorites that have fallen in historical times, and of the small part of the earth's surface actually occupied by human settlements, we need scarcely be surprised at the statement that there is but one credibly recorded instance of the killing of a human being by a meteorite. This unique disaster is said to have happened at Mhow in India, and fragments of the meteorite which fell then are to be seen in museum collections. The great weight of some meteorites would have rendered them very destructive had they not fallen in the open country; the heaviest single mass actually known to have fallen, came to the ground at Knyahinya, Hungary, in 1866, and weighed 547 pounds; it buried itself 11 feet in the ground. Of course much heavier aerolites and siderites, satisfactorily recognizable as such, have been found, the heaviest being perhaps that at Bacubrit, Mexico, 13 feet in length with a width of 6 feet and a thickness of 5 feet; the weight of this mass is estimated to be some 50 tons. Of meteorites which have fallen in more or less close proximity to human beings, may be noted one at Tourinnes-la-Grosse, which broke the street pavement; another at Angers, which fell into a garden, near to where a lady was standing; and still another at Brunau, which passed through a cottage roof.
Many other accidents caused by meteorites or what were believed to be meteorites are recorded, the credibility of some of the statements not being very convincing; others, however, appear to be quite worthy of credence. Thus the Chronicle of Ibn Alathir relates that several persons were killed by a rain of stones that fell to the earth in Africa in August, 1020 A.D. In the middle of the seventeenth century the tower of a prison building in Warsaw is said to have been destroyed by a meteorite. A hundred years or so before, on May 19, 1552, there was a great fall of stones, not far from Eisleben, one of which killed the favorite steed of Count Schwarzenburg, while another wounded the count's body-physician, Dr. Mitthobius, in the foot. This was witnessed by Spangenberg, who reports it in his Saxon Chronicle; he carried off some of the stones with him to Eisleben. An eight-pound stone (probably a siderite) is stated by a certain Olaf Erikson to have fallen on shipboard and killed two persons, at some time about the middle of the seventeenth century; this is rather indefinite information. The most remarkable happening, however, is reported from Milan from the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, when a very small meteorite, weighing not quite an ounce, fell into the cloister of Santa Maria della Pace (now a cotton factory) and killed a Franciscan monk. Such was the velocity of this little stone that it penetrated deep into the monk's body, whence it was extracted and preserved for a long time in the Collection of Count Settala. The greater part of this collection went later to the Ambrosian Library at Milan, but Chladni sought in vain there for any trace of the death-dealing meteorite. |
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Precious Stones Guide Vol 8
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