Let us, therefore, the blessings which Providence sends,
  To our country, to us, our relations and friends,
  With gratitude own—­and employ the supplies,
  As prudence suggests, “to be merry and wise.”

  Nor ever, too curious the future to pry,
  Presume on our own feeble strength to rely;
  But, taught by the past; for the future, depend
  Where the wise and the good all their wishes extend.

JACOBUS.

* * * * *

FALLING STONES.

(For the Mirror.)

Of these bodies, the most general opinion now is, that they are really of celestial origin.  But a few years ago, nothing could have appeared more absurd than the idea that we should ever be able to examine the most minute fragment of the siderial system; and it must, no doubt, be reckoned among the wonders of the age in which we live, that considerable portions of these heavenly bodies are now known to have descended to the earth.  An event so wonderful and unexpected was at first received with incredulity and ridicule; but we may now venture to consider the fact as well established as any other hypothesis of natural philosophy, which does not actually admit of mathematical demonstration.  The attention of our philosophers was first called to this subject by the falling of one of these masses of matter near Flamborough Head, in Yorkshire; it weighed about 50 pounds, and for some years after its descent did not excite the interest it deserved, nor would perhaps that attention have been paid to it which was required for the investigation of the truth, if a similar and more striking phenomenon had not happened a few years afterwards at Benares, in the East Indies.  Some fragments of the stones which fell in India were brought to Sir Joseph Banks by Major Williams; and Sir Joseph being desirous of knowing if there might not be some truth in these repeated accounts of falling stones, gave them to be analyzed, when it was found by a very skilful analysis, published in the Transactions, 1802, that the stones collected in various countries, and to which a similar history is attached, contained very peculiar ingredients, and all of the same kind.  The earthy parts were silex and magnesia, in which were interspersed small grains of metallic iron.  Since these investigations, the subject has attracted very general attention, and most of the fragments of stones said to have fallen from heaven, and which have been preserved in the cabinets of the curious, on account of this tradition, have been analyzed, and found to consist of the same ingredients, varying only in their different proportions.

Pliny relates, that a great stone fell near Egos Potamos, in the Thracian Chersonese, in the second year of the 78th Olympiad.  In the year 1706, another large stone is, on the authority of Paul Lucas, then at Larissa, said to have fallen in Macedonia.  It weighed 72 pounds.  Cardan assures us, that a shower of at least 1,200 stones fell in Italy, the largest of which weighed 120 pounds; and their fall was accompanied by a great light in the air.