350 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



turned to stone as it fell ; and still earlier Chinese records 

 go back to the date B.C. 644. In the Talmud is a legend 

 concerning the plague of hail in Egypt, that the hailstones 

 were very large, each of them being about the size of an in- 

 fant's head ; and that as they touched the ground they burst 

 into flames. Livy mentions several instances of a rain of 

 stones, and in the earliest reference which he makes, in 

 his first book, to the shower of stones that fell about 652 

 B.C. on the Alban Mount he is careful to distinguish them 

 from hailstones, " hand aliter quam quum grandimem venti 

 glomeratam in terras agunt, crebri cecidere ccelo lapides ". 



The best established and the most famous of all in 

 ancient times is that which fell about the time of the battle 

 of y£gos Potami in b.c 403, and near the scene of the 

 battle, as related by Plutarch in his life of Lysander. 



Plutarch says that it was of great size and was held in 

 great veneration by the people of the Chersonese who 

 showed it in his own time. This fall is rendered doubly 

 interesting by its association with the name of the philo- 

 sopher Anaxagoras who is said to have foretold the event. 

 On this subject Bayle in his Dictionary quotes Philostratus 

 as attributing to Anaxagoras a great reputation for such 

 predictions. At one time he predicted that on a certain 

 day at noon the sun would become dark ; at another he 

 went to the Olympic Games with a cloak, knowing that it 

 would rain, although the day was quite clear and serene ;; 

 and a little while after it rained violently. 



As is well known, the fall at ^Egos Potami is still further 

 confirmed by Pliny, who asserts that the prediction of 

 Anaxagoras was made sixty-two years before the battle.. 

 He goes on to say : " The stone is still shown, of the size 

 of a crowbar, and of a burnt colour. There was a comet 

 at night at that time ; " and further : " A stone is at the 

 present day held in reverence at the school of Abydos ; it 

 is only small in size, but it is the one whose fall to the earth 

 was foretold by Anaxagoras. It is also reverenced at 

 Cassandria, now called Potidcea." 



There can hardly be any doubt that, in spite of the 

 legend about its prediction, all this refers to a real meteorite- 



