16 Life of Sir Stamford Raffles — Introduction. 



of meteorites having been, at length, as well established as that 

 of volcanic eruptions, or any other great phaenomenon of nature, 

 the value possessed by accounts of particular cases, must now be 

 estimated by a standard, diiFerent from that to which they were 

 applied, at the period when the attention of philosophers was first 

 arrested by the subject. For their utility depends, at the pre- 

 sent time, not so much on the evidence they afford of the actual 

 occurrence of the phaenomenon, as on their precise and compre- 

 hensive description of the attendant circumstances. Mr. Howard 

 and his coadjutor, in their paper detailing the investigation just 

 alluded to, which was published, including Mr. Williams's narra- 

 tive, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1802, and which is an 

 admirable example of inductive research, inferred, from the affini- 

 ties borne by various specimens of Native Iron to the stones known 

 to have fallen from meteors, that the same origin was to be ascribed 

 to them ; and the correctness of this inference was immediately 

 admitted by philosophers. The learned archaeologist Edward 

 King, had already communicated to the public, the Abbe Stutz's 

 account of the fall of two masses of iron near Agram in Croatia, 

 in 1751 ; but as Mr. King, though he quotes the Abbe's words 

 proving these meteorites to consist of iron^ invariably alludes to 

 them himself as being stones^* this instance, it would appear, 

 was altogether overlooked by contemporary inquirers in England ; 

 and thus an important link in the chain of evidence seemed to be 

 wanting. The deficiency was soon supplied from the oriental 

 collections of Colonel Kirkpatrick, who communicated to Mr. 

 Greville, an extract from the autobiographic memoirs of Jehan- 

 guire, narrating the fall of a mass of iron in the.Punjaub in the 

 year 1620; and this interesting document being presented, by 

 that distinguished patron of science, to the Royal Society, was 

 printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1803. The progress 

 of knowledge respecting meteorites, therefore, has been essentially 

 benefited by information from India. 



The discovery, or rather the exploration, of the vast central 

 chain of mountains forming the barrier between India and Thibet, 

 and called the Himalaya, or '' the abode of snows," which have 



* Remarks concerning Stones said to have fallen from the Clouds, p. 23. 



