The Naples lapstone fall
A stone of plainly artificial shape was said to have fallen at Naples in November 1885. Two professors treated it as unexplained; Nature's correspondent took it for a shoemaker's lapstone of Vesuvian lava.
Charles Fort's The Book of the Damned records the report. In November 1885 word went round that a good-sized stone, clearly artificial in shape, had fallen at Naples. Two Naples professors described it and treated it as unexplained but real. Dr. H. Johnstone-Lavis, who wrote for Nature, went to see them.
Johnstone-Lavis's own letter to Nature gives his reasons. At first sight he took it for a shoemaker's lapstone made of lava from Vesuvius. Its glossy surface was grease and dirt polished in by use. He was given a chip, and a thin section of it showed a typical Vesuvian leucitophyre, probably lava from 1631 out of the La Scala quarries.
"That it had been reported that a good-sized stone, of form clearly artificial, had fallen at Naples, November, 1885. The stone was described by two professors of Naples, who had accepted it as inexplicable but veritable. They were visited by Dr. H. Johnstone-Lavis, the correspondent to _Nature_, whose investigations had convinced him that the object was a "shoemaker's lapstone.""
- Nature, Vol. 33, No. 842 (17 December 1885), Nature (1885), Internet Archive scan sim_nature-uk_1885-12-17_33_842