It is stated in Spangenberg’s Chron. Saxon. that in 998 A.D. two immense stones fell at Magdeburg during a thunder-storm. One of these is said to have fallen in the town itself and the other in the open country, near the river Elbe. The description of a meteoric fall given in an eighteenth century treatise on meteors, presents a vivid picture of the phenomena attending—or believed to have attended—such a fall. We are told that on June 16, 1794, at about seven o’clock in the evening a thunder cloud was seen in Tuscany, near the city of Siena and the town of Radacofani. This cloud came from the north, and shot forth sparks like rockets, smoke rising from it like a furnace; at the same time a series of explosions was heard, not so much resembling the sound of thunder as that produced by the firing of cannon or the discharge of many muskets. The cloud remained suspended in the air for some time, during which many stones fell to the earth, some of which were found. One of them is described as being of irregular form, with a point like a diamond; it weighed about five pounds and gave out a “vitriolic smell.” Another weighed three and a half pounds, was very hard, of the color of iron, and “smelled like brimstone.”[170] The following passage written in the fourteenth, or perhaps in the thirteenth century, shows considerable accuracy of observation:[171] There are some who fancy that the thunder is a stone, for the reason that a stone often falls when it thunders in stormy weather. This is not true, for if the thunder were a stone, it would wound the people and animals it strikes, just as any other falling stone does. However, this is not the case, for we see that the people who have been struck by thunder (sic) show no wounds, but they are black from the stroke, and this is because the hot vapor burns the blood in their hearts. Therefore, they perish without wounds. The fall of a siderite twenty miles east of Lahore in India, on April 17, 1621, is reported in contemporary records. From this iron, which weighed about 3¼ pounds, the Mogul Emperor Jehangir ordered two sabres to be made, as well as a knife and a dagger, and commanded that the fact should be properly registered. Here, as in other similar cases, the weapons were believed to possess a quasi-magic power because of the celestial origin of the material employed.[172]