96 M, ChladnVs New Catalogue of Aerolites, [Aug. 



1824, 13th Aug. — City of Mendoza, in the republic of Buenos 

 Ayres. Dust that fell from a black cloud. At a 

 distance of 40 leagues, the same cloud discharged 

 itself again. Gazette de Buenos Ayres, Nov. 1, 1824. 

 M. Chladni has extracted from the work of Ma-Touan-Lin, a 

 Chinese author of the 13th century, lately translated by M. Abel 

 Remusat, merely the dates of those aerolites, fragments of 

 which could be collected. If we suppose all globes of fire 

 which are accompanied with loud explosions before they disap- 

 pear, to be true aerolites ; Ma-Touan-Lin would supply 96 

 additional instances. M. Remusat shows that the Chinese and 

 Japanese observed with much accuracy every thing connected 

 with the appearance of these sinmjlar phenomena. They re- 

 marked that stones sometimes fall in perfectly calm weather ; 

 they compared their detonations to thunder, to the noise of a 

 falling wah, and to the lowing of oxen ; and the hissing noise 

 which accompanies their fall to the rustling of the wmgs of 

 wild birds, or the tearing of a piece of cloth. According to 

 them the stones are always in a state of ignition at the moment 

 they reach the ground ; their external surface is black ; and 

 some of them sound when struck like metallic substances. 

 The name by which they called them signifies falling stars 

 changed into stones. 



The Chinese believed that the appearance of aerolites was 

 connected with passing events, and for that reason made cata- 

 logues of them ; I do not know that we have much right to 

 ridicule this prejudice : were the savans of Europe much wiser 

 when, rejecting the evidence of facts, they affirmed that falls of 

 stones from the atmosphere were impossible? Did not the 

 Academy of Sciences, m 1769, declare that a stone, whose 

 fragments were collected at the moment when it fell, near Luce, 

 by several persons who followed it with their eyes to the point 

 where it reached the ground, did they not declare that it did not 

 fall from the atmosphere ? Lastly, was not the attestation of the 

 municipality of Lagrange de Juliac, affirming that on the 30th 

 of August, 1790, a large quantity of stones fell in the fields, on 

 the roofs of the houses, and in the streets of the village, treated 

 by the contemporary journals as a ridiculous fable, calculated to 

 excite the contempt, not only of savans, but of all rational per- 

 sons? Naturalists, who refuse to admit as facts, only those phae- 

 nomena which they are able to account for, certamly do more 

 injury to the advancement of science, than they who are liable 

 to the imputation of being too credulous. 



