On a Meteoric Paper composed of Conferyse ^ Infusoria. 185 question — he further mentioned that some of the perch were found as far as fifteen yards from the edge of the lake. Benjamin J. Clarke, Esq. of Merrion Square, Dublin, in a letter to a friend here, states that at La Bergerie in Queen's county, where he was on the 7th of January, he found lying under the branches of an ash-tree which had been blown down, two of the large titmice (Parus major) ; and that in Dublin he saw a specimen of the pere-grine falcon (Faico peregrinus) that met with its death on the same occasion. From a newspaper report of the devastation committed by the hurricane at Downhill, in the county of Londonderry, it appeared that a slab blown from the mausoleum, cut completely in two a poor hare that was sheltering beneath it. Thus far only have I heard of the effects of this terrific night upon the lower animals. Belfast, March 5, 1839. XXin. — On a Meteo7^ic Paper which fell from the Sky in the year 1686 m Courland, composed of Confervse «?i(/ Infusoria. By Prof. Ehrenberg of Berlin*. On the 31st January 1687j, a great mass of a paper-like black substance fell with a violent snovr-storm from the atmosphere near the village of Rauden in Courland ; it was seen to fall, and afler dinner ^vas found at places where the labourers at work had seen nothing similar before dinner. This meteoric sub-stance, described completely and figured in 1686, 1688, was recently again considered by M. v. Grotthus, after a chemical analysis, to be a meteoric mass ; but M. v. Berzelius, w ho also analysed it, could not discover the nickel said to be contained in it ; and Von Grotthus then revoked his opinion. It is men-tioned in Chladni's w^ork on Meteors, and noticed as an aero-phyte in Neesvon Esenbeck^s valuable x\ppendix to R. Brown^s ' Botan. Schriften.' I examined this substance, some of which is contained in the Berlin Museum (also in Chladni^s collec-tion) microscopically. I found the whole to consist evidently of a compactly matted mass of Conferva crispata, traces of a Nostoc, and of about twenty-nine well-preserved species of * Translated from the Berichte der Acadcmie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1838.
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