METEORITES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. 367 



in different parts of their fields, where on examining they 

 found the stones." 



Again in the same year a fall was reported at Ville- 

 franche, near Lyons ; the meteor was seen by many people 

 and the eye-witnesses were horribly alarmed. One man 

 whose house was within twenty paces of the spot where the 

 stone fell was so terrified by the noise that he " shut himself 

 up with his family in the cellar, and then in the bed-chamber, 

 where, fear prevailing over curiosity, he spent the night 

 without daring to go out to examine what had happened ". 



By this time Chladni's memoir had attracted attention 

 to at any rate the possibility of the truth of such reports, 

 and all these recent occurrences gave rise to much dis- 

 cussion. It will be sufficient to quote a few of the contem- 

 porary criticisms in order to gain some idea of the prevailing 

 impression which they created among those who read them. 



W. Beauford writing in the Philosophical Magazine in 

 1802, concludes that the matter must be of volcanic origin 

 and derived either from Vesuvius, Etna, or Hecla. But 

 the distances are too far for them to have traversed as 

 stones. " Hence, if they originate from volcanic ashes 

 they must be formed in the clouds where those ashes meet- 

 ing with carbonic, sulphuric and other acids, and mixing 

 with earthy particles drawn from terrestrial objects are by 

 the electric tiuid in the lightning precipitated from the 

 aqueous vapours which bore them up, and, becoming 

 united, fall to the earth in the form of stones, as in some 

 measure is evinced from the flashes of light and detonation 

 which accompany their fall." 



Pictet writing on behalf of the French National Institute 

 in 1803 expressed the opinion that "the attention of philo- 

 sophers should be directed to the subject in order that the 

 phenomenon if true may be confirmed — or if only an 

 illusion supported by popular error may be consigned for 

 ever to the class of errors ". In the same year the French 

 Institute mentions new motives to " induce philosophers to 

 examine and appreciate the different testimonies in conse- 

 quence of which the stones in question have been supposed 

 to have fallen from the clouds. When a phenomenon 



