588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ni:in has misfortunes like the unjust; he may suft'er from accident or 

 disease. His justice may be denied; he may suffer the penalties of 

 injustice. All this may happen in particular cases, and yet no one 

 doubts that on the whole the just man reaps a reward for his justice. 

 A very simple law oj^erates to reward him. By his justice he benefits 

 the community, and the community, partly out of gratitude, partly 

 out of an interested calculation, repay him for the service he has done. 

 This law fails of its effect in a good number of cases, but in the ma- 

 jority of cases it does not fail. And when it fails, it seldom fails 

 altogether. There is generally some reward for justice, if not always 

 an adequate reward. Accordingly, not only Christians, or those who 

 believe in something more than Nature, but those whose only God is 

 Nature, and even those whose knowledge of Nature is very superficial, 

 fully recognize that virtue is rewarded. " Honesty is the best policy " 

 has become a proverb, and hypocrites have come into existence hoping 

 to secure the reward without deserving it. We see, then, that those 

 who believe in Nature only may be said to believe not only in a God, 

 but, in some sense, in a personal God. Their God, at least, has so 

 much of personality that he takes account of the distinction of virtue 

 and vice, that he punishes crime, and that he relieves distress. Mac- 

 niillan''s Magazine. 



THE GREAT IOWA METEOR. 



By De. GUSTAVUS HINEICHS. 



ON the evening of Friday, February 12, 1875, at twenty minutes past 

 ten o'clock, one of the most brilliant meteors, of modern times 

 illuminated the entire State of Iowa, and adjacent parts of the States 

 of Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The southeastern 

 portion of Iowa was bright as day, while the great meteor, in descend- 

 ing to the earth, passed from Appanoose County to Iowa County. 

 The meteor, in i*apidly moving through the atmosphere, produced a 

 great variety of sounds rolling, rumbling, and detonations of fearful 

 intensity which in a large portion of Iowa County shook the houses 

 as if moved by an earthquake. 



But three days after the great phenomenon, a meteoric stone, 

 weighing seven pounds, was found by Miss Sarah Sherlock, while on 

 her way from scliool precisely where observers had seen a "glowing 

 coal " descend to the earth. In April and May, while the farmers 

 were cultivating the land, about 400 pounds of meteoric stones were 

 gathered on the meteorite-field of Iowa County. Quite recently two 

 large meteorites have been found, aggregating 120 pounds. But these 

 500 pounds of meteoric stones apparently are only a portion of a 

 smaller fragment of the entire meteoric body, so that the whole mass 



