Various have been the conjectures relative to the cause and origin of the meteoric stones, or fire balls, which have been known to fall to the earth, in all ages, and in various parts of the world. Some have imagined them to be precipitated from a comet or some of the planets; others that they come from the moon; and Captain Symmes's opinion, I believe, is that they are formed isolated in space by spontaneous accumulations, as by attracting molecules of matter at first in a fluid state, which afterwards solidifies by heat or motion. But come from whence they may, they are said to be constituted of a substance unknown to our geologists; and in several instances the fragments have been ascertained to consist of pieces, some of which have concave and some convex surfaces, affording a certain proof that previous to their descent, they had been constituted of hollow spheres. Professor Silliman, of Yale college, has preserved some of the fragments of one of these fire balls; and in his valuable journal, has given the public an able description of the facts which occurred, when they fell. This fire ball fell in the state of Connecticut, in the year 1807, producing three distinct reports, like a cannon, making three convulsive leaps or throes in its course, which were simultaneous no doubt with the explosions, becoming less luminous after each, and being quite extinguished at the third. Three showers of stones fell to the earth in a line with its course; the second shower fell five miles distant from the first, and the last three or four miles from the second. Some of the fragments were found to be concave, others convex, and especially on those sides of the fragments which were glazed with sooty crusted surface, as if vitrified. These phenomena are precisely such as would occur, supposing the fire ball to have been a small satellite, or erratic planet, at first fluid, which had become so condensed by the increased action of terrestrial gravity, occasioned by its sudden approach, as to cause its fluid parts to chrystalize and form into, at least, three concentric spheres; and the latent heat and light set free by such rapid condensation as to produce the meteoric flame; which in this case was almost equal in light to that of the sun at mid-day. As soon as the spheres became sufficiently solidified to prevent the heated aerial fluid, contained in the mid-plane cavities of the spheres, from passing out with freedom, when expanded by the heat; or let the atmospheric air pass in, in case a condensation within afforded a vacuum; the solid crusts of the spheres would be disruptured successively one after the other; lose their regular rotation, and fall in fragments to the earth. The fall of this body is not a solitary instance of the kind: others have fallen in many parts of the earth, attended with phenomena more or less the same.