by a great light in the air.

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.