"In another place, five miles away from the first one, somebody found a hole in the turf, and on digging down about two feet he brought up a stone weighing thirty-five pounds. Other stones were found in the neighborhood weighing respectively ten, thirteen, twenty, and thirty-six pounds, and at a spot several miles distant there were a dozen fragments, evidently broken from a mass of two hundred pounds or more, that struck a large rock with great force. The entire weight of all the pieces of the meteor found in Weston exceeded three hundred pounds, and one of the specimens, weighing thirty-six pounds, is preserved in the cabinet at Yale College." "The proof is pretty conclusive that the fragments came from the shooting-star," one of the boys remarked. "Do they know how high it was in the sky when it blew up?" "It was first seen near Albany," was the reply, "and it disappeared near Weston. When first seen it was about eighty miles high; its course carried it toward the earth, so that when it exploded it was only eight miles high. Probably the greater part of the meteor fell into Long Island Sound and was lost, as the direction in which it was going would take it there. "There have been some twenty or more aerolites in the United States whose falls have been known at the time of their occurrence, besides a good many discoveries of meteoric stones. There was one in Ohio in 1860 that burst in the air one day about noon; several stones were seen to fall and were secured, the largest of them weighing one hundred and three pounds. The surface of all the stones was covered with a crust, as though they had been melted. "Now we come to the composition of the meteoric fragments. It varies greatly, some of them containing ninety-six per cent. of iron, while others have only one per cent.; in some there will be eighteen per cent. of nickel, and in others less than one per cent. There are many aerolites that consist of silica, lime, magnesia, and kindred substances; these are called meteoric stones, to distinguish them from those where iron preponderates, the latter having the name of meteoric iron. "Aerolites generally contain small quantities of cobalt, tin, copper, and one or two other metals, in addition to the iron. The latter, when in large proportion, is readily malleable, and can be wrought by the blacksmith with the utmost ease. You know that iron ore is one of the most abundant minerals, but metallic iron in a state of nature is exceedingly rare. The curious thing about these meteors is that the iron in them is always metallic, and not in the shape of ore. [Illustration: THE SANTA ROSA AEROLITE.]