The caaba, or great black stone, preserved by the Mahometans in the Temple of Mecca, had probably a celestial origin. It is said to have been brought from heaven by the angel Gabriel. Some astronomers imagine that these stones have been thrown from a lunar volcano. There is nothing, perhaps, philosophically inconsistent in this theory, for volcanic appearances have been seen in the moon; and a force such as our volcanoes exert would be sufficient to project fragments that might possibly arrive at the surface of the earth. But probability is certainly against it, and it seems more likely that they are fragments of comets. For those bodies, from their own nature, must be subject to chemical changes of a very violent nature; add to this, that from the smallness of their dimensions, a fragment projected from them with a very slight velocity would never return to the mass to which it originally belonged; but would traverse the celestial regions till it met with some planetary or other body sufficiently ponderous to attract it to itself. We have numerous other instances of these phenomena, which are attested by many very credible witnesses, but I will not at present monopolize more of your valuable pages with this subject, though one of considerable interest; yet I may, perhaps, at some future period, if agreeable, send you a few rather more circumstantial and more interesting accounts than the above. _Near Sheffield._ J.M.C----D. * * * * * THE POET, CHATTERTON. _(To the Editor of the Mirror.)_ Should the following notice of Chatterton, which I copy from a _small handkerchief_ in my possession, be thought worthy of a place in the MIRROR, you will oblige me by inserting it. The handkerchief has been in my possession about twenty-five years, and was probably printed soon after the poet's death; he is represented sitting at a table, writing, in a miserable apartment; behind him the bed turned up, &c. SUFFOLK. _The Distressed Poet, or a true representation of the unfortunate Chatterton._