366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A TALK ABOUT METEORITES. 



By OLIVER WHIPPLE HUNTINGTON, Ph. D., 



INSTBCOTOB IN MINEBALOGY AND CHEMISTBY, HABVABD UNIYEBSITY. 



METEORITES are particularly interesting because they com- 

 prise the only material coming to us from outer space. In 

 consequence of the striking phenomena resulting from their rapid 

 passage through our atmosphere, making them appear like balls 

 of fire visible at great distances, sometimes exploding with such 

 violence as to be taken for earthquakes, their falls have been 

 noticed and recorded since the earliest times. The accounts, how- 

 ever, were so imbued with superstitions, and so distorted by the 

 terrified condition of the narrators, that in most cases the witness- 

 es of the event were laughed at for their supposed delusions, and 

 it was not till the beginning of the present century that men 

 of science and people in general began to give credit to such 

 reports. 



The earliest authentic records of stones falling from the sky 

 are to be found in the Chinese annals, which go back to 644 B. c, 

 and between that time and 333 A. d. Biot has traced sixteen dis- 

 tinct occurrences. In Europe, a meteorite is said to have fallen 

 in Crete as far back as 1478 B. c, but Greek history can not be 

 depended upon for events earlier than 700 B. c. A more proba- 

 ble fall, in 705 B. c, is mentioned by Plutarch ; while Livy, in 

 his History of Rome, gives an account of a shower of stones 

 which fell on the Alban Mount about 652 B. c, and which so 

 impressed the senate that they decreed a nine days' solemn festi- 

 val. Again, in 466 B. c, a stone fell at JEgospotamos, in Thrace, 

 which is mentioned in the Parian Marbles, and also by Plutarch 

 and Pliny, which is said to have been of the size of two mill- 

 stones, and equal in weight to a full wagon-load. Still more 

 famous was the meteorite which fell 204 B. c. in Phrygia, de- 

 scribed as conical in shape, of a deep-brown color, and looking 

 like a piece of lava, and so pointed at the top that it was called 

 the " needle " of Cybele. This stone was believed to have fallen 

 from heaven, and was worshiped at Pessinus by the Phrygians 

 and Phoenicians as the Great Mother of the Gods. At the time of 

 the second Punic war, upon the announcement by an oracle that 

 its possession would secure continued prosperity to the state, it 

 was demanded from King Attalus and taken with great ceremony 

 to Rome, where it was mounted on a silver statue of the goddess 

 in place of the head. Signor Lanciani has traced its existence 

 down to 1730. It was then finally lost sight of, but he thinks it 

 may still exist, buried in the ruins of the Palace of the Ca?sars. 

 The Diana of the Ephesians, « which fell down from Jupiter/' and 



