There were a great many accounts in very early times, of stones having fallen from the sky. In China and some other eastern nations, they have long had a notion that such occurrences were connected with political events, and accordingly they have kept careful records of what they have known to fall for centuries back. This was a vain superstition, but it was not more vain than the incredulity with which these reports were received by nearly all the learned of Europe, till about forty years ago. They denied the existence of aerolites, for no other reason than because they had not seen them. Some new statements attracted the attention of scientific men in England and on the Continent, to the subject, about the beginning of the present century, and the conclusion of their researches was, that stones of various sizes do, in reality, not unfrequently fall from above to the earth. It appears that sometimes they fall singly, and at other times in great numbers. I will relate to you some particular instances. Near Benares, in the East Indies, in the month of December in the year 1798, a very bright meteor seemed to fall to the earth, about 8 o'clock in the evening, and a loud noise like thunder was heard, which was followed by a shock like the fall of heavy bodies. No cloud was to be seen in the sky. The light of the meteor was so great as to cast very distinct shadows of the objects in its way. The ground where it appeared to have fallen, was afterwards examined, and was found to be strangely torn up, having a number of small holes in it about six inches deep. At the bottom of each hole was In the year 1803, a similar event took place in Normandy. The meteor, when first seen, must have been at a very great elevation, for the inhabitants of two places more than a league distant from each other, thought it was just over their respective towns. A hissing noise was also heard, like that of a stone hurled by a sling. The space over which the stones were dispersed, must have been more than eight miles long and three wide. There were about two thousand of them collected, of various weights, from two drachms to seventeen pounds. Two stones, one of which weighed 200 and the other 300 pounds, fell in the year 1668, at Verona. In 1680, several small ones are said to have fallen in London. In 1628, several fell near Hatford, in Berkshire, one of which weighed twenty-four pounds. In 1795, one weighing fifty-five pounds, fell in Yorkshire. In 1810, a large aerolite fell, which was the This is a cut of an aerolite in the British Museum, which fell in Buenos Ayres. It weighs 1,400 pounds. They are generally covered over with a thin crust, which is quite black, and have a very Their descent appears to be quite independent of the state of the atmosphere, from whence we may infer that the clouds have nothing at all to do with them, but that they come from much higher regions. When they have been found soon after falling, they have always been extremely hot, and, as I told you of one in India, they have been known to set on fire what they have come in contact with on the surface of the earth. There have been four schemes devised to account The celebrated Frenchman, La Place, thought they were substances that had been cast out by volcanoes in the moon, with such violence as to send them within the limits of the earth's attraction. Some have conjectured that they are formed in the air by the consolidation of clouds of gaseous matters exhaled from the earth; but according to Sir H. Davy's view of the nature of flame, the light of meteors must arise from the ignition of solid bodies, so that at least they must become solid while they are in the condition of meteors, and long enough before they approach the earth. I will tell you what I think, according to the |
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