A TALK ABOUT METEORITES. 369 



many eye-witnesses it seems impossible to withstand their evi- 

 dence." 



As the wind was from the north when the stones fell at Siena, 

 while Vesuvius was to the south, it was suggested that the cloud 

 from which they came had been blown all the way from Vesuvius 

 past Siena and then back again, before it condensed. 



The next meteorite seen to fall was in England itself. On De- 

 cember 13, 1795, a stone weighing fifty-six pounds fell at Wold 

 Cottage, in Yorkshire, at about three o'clock' in the afternoon, and 

 several persons saw it fall. It fell on a perfectly clear day, and 

 penetrated twelve inches of soil and six inches of chalk rock. In 

 the neighboring villages sounds were heard which were taken for 

 the firing of guns at sea, and in two villages there was such a dis- 

 tinct sound of something whizzing through the air toward the 

 house of a Mr. Topham that several people ran there to see what 

 had happened. When the stone was dug up it was warm and 

 smoked. It was exhibited in London, and handbills were dis- 

 tributed giving an account of its descent. Such advertising, how- 

 ever, did not tend to make people believe in the celestial origin 

 of the stone ; and, as there were no volcanoes in England, it was 

 thought that it might have been condensed from a cloud of ashes 

 blown from Mount Hecla in Iceland. We do not, however, have 

 to go back one hundred years to find wild hypotheses as to the 

 probable origin of meteorites. Even now very little is known, 

 and the field for speculation is nearly as unlimited as it was then, 

 though the theories of a few centuries ago are simpler and more 

 amusing than the recent ones. In the chronicles of the Bene- 

 dictine monks a theory of the origin of meteorites is given 

 briefly thus : 



" In the year 921, in the time of Lord John X, pope, in the sev- 

 enth year of his pontificate, signs were seen ; for, near the city 

 of Rome, many stones were seen to fall from the sky — such dread- 

 ful and terrible ones in the city of ISTarnia that people had to be- 

 lieve that they were brought straight from hell. The very biggest 

 of the stones, falling into the river Narnius, can be seen to this 

 day, projecting a cubit above the surface of the water." 



A Persian philosopher, Syed Abdulla, in 1814, describing a fall 

 of stones near Bombay, says : " The causes of this may be, that in 

 the course of working (or of changes on) the ground, air being 

 extricated, may have entered into combination, and come near ele- 

 mental fire, and from this fire have received a portion of heat ; 

 that then it may have united with brimstone and terrene salt, 

 as, for instance, saltpeter ; when the mixture, from some cause, 

 being ignited, the fire bestows its own property on the mass, and 

 the stones which may have been above it are blown into the air — 

 God knows the truth." 



