72 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



We can now proceed to speak of the development of this cult, which 

 has left so many traces on historical pages that it a])pears to have had a 

 considerable vogue, especially where the Arabian intluence prevailed. 

 That intellectual and warlike race had a wide empire in the time of the 

 shepherd kings of Egypt. Under the Tobbaas of the Christian era their 

 sway extended to China, while under the successors of Mahomet they 

 ruled from India to France. They were, from the earliest times, much 

 given to astronomical studies, the appearance of certain stars being the 

 signal for certain kinds of woi'k. Each tribe had a tutelar}^ star, and the 

 worship of the meteorite appears to have been common among them. 

 There were several temples in Arabia where such sacred stones were 

 reverenced. One, at Petra, was dedicated to a god who had the attri- 

 butes of Mars, an appropriate dedicatipn, for celestial phenomena have 

 always had much influence on armies. The worship seems, however, to 

 have become in time encrusted with idolatry ; images were placed in the 

 temples, and a new litholatr}^ had replaced the old form when Mahomet 

 appeared upon the scene, destroj-ed the figures and the temples too, 

 excepting one, at Mecca. This is of especial interest here, because the 

 traveller Burton, in his " Mecca and Medina," says that, after an exam- 

 ination of full ten minutes, he is convinced the celebrated black stone 

 there reverenced, and kissed b}^ every pilgrim, is a meteorite. 



This shrine was probably the one referred to by Diodorus (200 b. c.) 

 when he says the Bizomenians possess the most sacred fane in all Arabia, 

 and the strength of inherited religious beliefs and customs is nowhere 

 better shown than in its history. It was several times rebuilt, had gates 

 and palisadings given it that were forged from captured weapons, was 

 adorned with images and dowered with gold. It even endured through 

 Mahomet's iconoclastic times. He did, indeed, remove the great idol that 

 stood above the Kaaba, or shrine proper, and the various other images 

 and objects the Arabians had venerated there ; l)ut his order that the 

 faithful should turn in ptayer towards Jerusalem was so obnoxious that 

 it had to be rescinded, and the black stone became and remains the cen- 

 tral point of the Mohammedan woi-ld. The Kaal)a is said to have been 

 built by Abraham, at the divine command, and to be modelled on the 

 oratory of Adam. Isaac furnished the material, and the black stone 

 served as a scaffold, l»eing miraculously raised or lowered to suit Abra- 

 ham's convenience in building. This stone is fabled to have been as 

 Avhite as milk, but to have become black with the sins of iinbelievers. 

 Burton says it is of a reddish-brown colour, with shining points — just 

 what a crj'pto-siderite after frequent rubbing might well be. 



It seems difficult to believe that the kings of the Amorites, upon 

 whom we are told in Joshua, x, 11, that "the Lord cast down great 

 «tones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died," were not 

 the victims of a shower of aerolites, especially when it is added in Judges, 



