Abstract
IBN-BATTUTAH, the famous globe-trotter of the Middle Ages, in his travels from Tangier to China and West Africa (A.D. 1325–54), on reaching Birgi (the ancient Pyrgion in the valley of the Cayster—not far from the old Ephesus in Asia Minor), some time after 1332, was asked by the local sultan if he had ever seen a stones “that had fallen from the sky”. When he replied in the negative, the sultan showed him the stone that had fallen some time ago outside the town, and ordered four stone-breakers to strike it vigorously with iron hammers. They did so, but with no effect. It weighed about a hundredweight and was “very hard with a glitter in it”1. All this goes to suggest that it must have been a siderite. This fall is not mentioned in the list given in H. H. Nininger's “Our Stone-Pelted Planet”2.
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References
Gibb, H. A. R., "Ibn Battūta's Travels" (London: George Routledge), 134.
Boston and New York: Huffton Mifflinand Co., 1933.
Phil. Mag., 55, No. 251 (1820); Nature, 135, 39 (1935).
Bonn, Henry G., "Cosmos", vol. 1 (London, 1849), 124.
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KHAN, M. A Siderite of the Fourteenth Century. Nature 154, 465 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154465b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154465b0
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