METEORITES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. 361 



a century before by Torbernus Bergmann, the celebrated 

 Professor of Chemistry at Upsala, in his treatise De Aver- 

 tendo Fulmine (1764), where he makes the following obser- 

 vation : " Popularis erat veterum Teutonum Suionumque 

 opinio lapides quosdam de coelo mitti, quos Thors-vigger 

 (Donnerkeile, i.e. Lapides Ceraunios s. Belemnitas) voca- 

 bant ; " and then he states that three opinions concerning 

 these Ceraunian stones are held among philosophers. (1) 

 That the whole thing is a fable, and that the stones them- 

 selves are weapons in which the handiwork of man is 

 clearly apparent; (2) that these stones really fell to the 

 ground with the lightning, as is thought by the Arabians ; 

 in which case they may either have been carried into the 

 air by the wind, or may have been generated in the air as 

 is suggested by Cartesius ; or (3) that they have been fused 

 into a mass at the point where lightning has struck the 

 ground ; an argument adduced in favour of this view by 

 Stahlius is that a certain man, expert in such matters, 

 having found a little hole in the ground while he was 

 digging predicted that there would be a ceraunian stone at 

 the bottom ; which proved to be the case. 



Bergmann himself rejects the first two hypotheses as 

 clearly absurd ; but being convinced by the recent discoveries 

 of Franklin that the phenomenon is electrical, thinks that 

 the last explanation is not only possible but probable. 



It is rather difficult now to realise the attitude of mind 

 adopted by the leaders of thought at the beginning of the 

 present century. There was no lack of evidence ; plenty of 

 witnesses asserted that they had seen the stones fall, and 

 many of them were actually preserved. Shooting stars 

 have ol course always been familiar, just as they are at the 

 present time, but the scientific authorities of that date after 

 duly weighing the evidence came to the conclusion that 

 there was no proof that these stars ever fell to the ground. 

 They preferred to believe that those who professed to 

 have witnessed such falls were mistaken, and that the 

 supposed meteorites were ordinary stones struck by light- 

 ning. In fact, the witnesses generally mentioned thunder 

 and lightning as accompanying the fall ; this in itself was 



