Description
0.083g fragment. It is very rare for sale. Sold in a collection box with label/certificate of authenticity.
*** If you buy from the € zone, please use € on my website and for payment. ***
On September 16, 1753, around 1 p.m. (or at 2:30 p.m. according to other accounts), a noise similar to that of two or three cannon shots was heard in the province of Bresse. The noise is most intense around Pont-de-Vesle.
In Luponnas, we even hear a whistle. On the same day, we find there as well as in Pin, two blackish rocks planted in the ground, one of which weighs 10 kilograms. Jérôme de la Lande, a famous astronomer of his time, attributes the phenomenon to some volcano which would have been born in the mountains of Mâconnais.
Here are some testimonies collected after the fall of the Luponnas meteorite.
Marie Bernigat discovers, two days after the events, a large stone, near Belloures, on the way to Rettisinges. She did not pick it up and it was therefore a young boy, Barthélémy Cocogne, who took it to Joseph Curtil who, in turn, gave it to the Pont-de-Veyle guard on September 22. The fragment weighs about 2.7 kg.
Philibert Robin, innkeeper-granger from the village of Pin, goes to Saint-Jean-de-Veyle for vespers. His servant, Cochet, hears the impact of a fragment but finds nothing. He returns to the site the next day and, with the help of two farmers, digs up a rock mass weighing about 6 kg. All three the take it to Mr. Robin who, out of curiosity or fear, breaks it into pieces to see the interior.
The miller of the mill of Vavre, Mr. Ronjon, goes to vespers in Vonnas. He too hears the explosions, the whistle and then the fall of a mass of the other side of the river in land at a place called Les Grandes-Terres, near Luponnas. He brings home the stone of about 3 kg then it is broken and the pieces are shared with all the people accompanying Mr. Ronjon.
There is also a fragment near the village of Bez (or Bey).
On April 29, 1754, Joseph Verdet, living in Bagne, found “a twisted stone” in a ditch, at a place called Les Sablons.
At a place called Champagne, we mention the fall of a stone that will never be found.
Finally, fishermen who are near Luponnas hear and see several pieces fall into pools and swamps around them.
In 1878, a letter found in the archives appeared in the Revue du Lyonnais, written by Father Blondela, parish priest of Luponnas at the time of the fall. The description is very detailed but it indicates that the fall took place on December 16, 1742. This is an error because so many accounts at the time of the fall
mention the date of September 16, 1753.
Mr. Lafaveur indicates, in 1880, that “thirty villages were stoned. ” It is not not specified if it is simply the number of localities where the violent phenomenon was collected or if it is the number of villages where stones were collected. If so, the fall must have been considerable.
The officially recognized date for this fall, September 13, must certainly be questioned, and if we rely on the writings of Jérôme de la Lande, the first to have widely communicated on the phenomenon since 1755. Consequently, we can decide on September 16, 1753 as the date of the fall.
