prevalent Disorders, Sfc, with Volcanic Ernanations, 807 



in thunder storms, mineral substances are evaporated by the 

 heat evolved, and that portions of metals, &c., are actually 

 carried off by the electric action, and deposited upon other 

 bodies, by precipitation, in a state of ignition and fusion. 

 Now, allowing this to be the case, and the evidence adduced 

 in this paper strengthens the idea, we need not, 1 think, go 

 beyond the earth for a solution of the enigma. The whole 

 mass of testimony, without an exception, involves the notion 

 of intense heat, and the developement of electric force. 



We have seen, in what has gone before, that meteors and 

 meteorites must have a similar origin ; that they are con- 

 nected with electric phenomena ; that they produce or are 

 followed by electrical changes in the atmosphere ; that snow, 

 rain, hail, lightning, the aurora boreal is, shooting stars, and 

 aerolites are frequently contemporaneous and connected with 

 each other, and with earthquakes and volcanic emanations 

 and explosions; that, about the time when the earth is in 

 particular excitement from the latter phenomena, the former 

 are more numerous and most intense ; and that very fre- 

 quently direct evidence has been afforded of a volcanic origin. 

 Analysis has proved that there is no substance in meteorites 

 not found in the earth, except in one or two particular cases, 

 as in that of Sterlitamanck and Kirianova ; that nickel, long 

 supposed to be a meteoric metal, is found in mineral masses 

 of terrestrial origin ; and that there are frequently traces of 



many other facts seem to prove that iron exists in the air and in clouds, 

 and it is well known that the same metal mixed with manganese, nitrous 

 salts, and organic substances, is found in rain water. M. Fusinieri is of 

 opinion, that the iron has been drawn from the earth, and chiefly from 

 mountains, where the mines are most frequented, and where storms com- 

 monly begin to form. [This by the way agrees perfectly with the idea of 

 Dr. Hermann.] The colouring matter of snow and rain, and the existence 

 of meteoric stones, prove the existence in our atmosphere of dry and ferru- 

 ginous vapours, the molecules of which are moi*e or less rarefied or con- 

 densed, according to the causes which may generate them. The fact that 

 meteoric stones fall during the prevalence of storms and other electric 

 phenomena, and especially the fact that hailstones have sometimes a 

 nucleus of small pieces of sulphuret of iron, appear to M. Fusinieri to 

 afford the true origin of these remarkable bodies. It has been already 

 proved that electricity does transport matter; and when we consider, as 

 Ampere has shown, that magnetic currents surround our globe, that matter 

 in an extreme state of subdivision spontaneously expands itself, and that 

 radiating heat, like electricity, transports ponderable substances, we may 

 obtain a very simple explanation of the origin of meteoric stones. As the 

 temperature of the surface of the globe is not high enough to detach from 

 it the material bodies which exist in the atmosphere, M. Fusinieri concludes 

 that we ought to attribute this action to other causes, which are yet to be 

 discovered, rather than deny a fact so completely demonstrated.^^ (p. 621.) 

 May not my illustrations in this paper justify me in considering a sufficient 

 cause already discovered ? 



X 2 



