A TALK ABOUT METEORITES. 367 



the Image of Venus at Cyprus, are now considered to have been 

 similar meteoric masses. 



There is a stone whose history goes back at least twelve centu- 

 ries, built into the northeast corner of the Kaaba at Mecca, held 

 in great reverence by the Moslems, which is supposed to have had 

 a similar origin. 



There are also numerous accounts of meteorites having been 

 worshiped in more modern times. One which fell about one hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago was worshiped for some time in the 

 temple of Ogi in Japan ; and a stone which fell in a field near the 

 village of Dooralla, in India, in 1815, was immediately decked 

 with flowers, and the natives would have builft a temple over it 

 were it not for a powerful constraint which took it to the British 

 Museum. 



Undoubtedly the oldest meteorite still preserved is one now in 

 the Harvard collection, which was found by Prof. Putnam on the 

 altar of Mound "No. 4 of the Turner Group (Little Miami Valley, 

 Ohio). It possibly had been an object of worship to the old 

 mound-builders during some prehistoric age, and the worship of 

 such sky-stones is considered by many writers to have been the 

 oldest form of idolatry. It is well known, however, that meteoric 

 iron was used by the mound-builders for coating bronze ornaments 

 with a white metal ; and two meteoric fragments, consisting wholly 

 of iron, were found on a neighboring altar. Many such ornaments 

 are to be found in our museums. There is an account in Dio 

 Cassius of an attempt, under the Emperor Severus, to coat bronze 

 coins with silver which was said to have come down from heaven. 

 The same mistake of taking meteoric iron for silver is frequently 

 made in the present day, owing to an unusual whiteness of the 

 iron and its extreme malleability. 



The oldest undoubted meteorite seen to fall was, till recently, 

 suspended by a chain from the vault of the parish church of En- 

 sisheim, in Alsace. The following, translated from a document 

 still preserved in the church, gives an account of its fall : 



" On the 16th of November, 1492, a singular miracle happened ; 

 for, between eleven and twelve in the forenoon, with a loud crash 

 of thunder and a prolonged noise heard afar off, there fell in the 

 town of Ensisheim a stone weighing two hundred pounds. It was 

 seen by a child to strike the ground in a field near the canton 

 called Gisgaud, where it made a hole more than five feet deep. It 

 was taken to the church as being a miraculous object. The noise 

 was heard so distinctly at Lucerne Villing and many other places 

 that in each of them it was thought some houses had fallen. 

 King Maximilian, who was then at Ensisheim, had the stone car- 

 ried to the castle ; after breaking off two pieces, one for the Duke 

 Sigismund of Austria and the other for himself, he forbade fur- 



