[a. HARVEY] THE DISTRIBUTION OF AEROLITES IN SPACE 95 



to have a nebulous i;-liininer surrounding a softly shining but fairly 

 defined luminous cloud, in which a somewhat more brilliant nucleus or 

 several nuclei may be seen. Telescopic stars can l»e seen thi'ough them. 

 Photographic representations represent a bladder or bubble containing 

 or inclosing something, with a bi"ight glow about the nucleus and some 

 wisps of light to form the trail. They may well be assemblages of meteoric 

 stones flying in a swarm, which would not obstruct the view of the heavens 

 beyond. Such may have been the aerolites which fell at L'Aigle, in 

 Xormandy, reported on by Biot, 1803. They appeai-ed like a small 

 rectangular cloud, and a vast number of stones weighing 10, 11 and even 

 17 lbs., fell to the ground, — two or three thousand of them, covering an 

 elliptical area ^^ miles long by 3 miles broad. Such was probably the 

 aerolite of 1876, which was seen in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, 

 Indiana and Ohio, and is described as "a fireball sui-passing the moon in 

 " apparent size, Ibllowed by a great number of smaller meteors, certainly 

 " 100 of them, many of which were larger than Tenus or Jupiter." One 

 fell and was found near Bloomington, O., others may have fallen too. 

 but the majority sailed away across Lake Brie "like a flock of wild 

 " geese, * * * moving with about the same velocity and grace of 

 " regularity." Such were the thousands that fell at Winnebago, Minn., 

 and very many others. These bodies were probably too small to be 

 emitting light of themselves (such light in the case of visible comets 

 being perhaps due to heat caused by the clashing of their parts in 

 concentration or in frequent collisions) or if luminous, too small to 

 attract the attention of a comet seeker, but they nevertheless seem to 

 have been small comets, whose career of growth or of disintegration was 

 suddenly cut short by collision with our j^lanet. 



A careful inspection of the table shows that in at least three cases 

 two aerolites have fallen on the same day in places widely separated. 

 Where they fall only a few miles apart, they may perhaps have been parts 

 of one body, and the explosion may have caused. the separation, also a 

 change in the direction of flight, which the resistance of the air, acting 

 on the changed shape of the missiles, may have increased. These reasons, 

 however, do not account for such distances as between the two which 

 fell on May 26th, 1826 — one near Ajen in France, the other, near Eca- 

 terineslaw in Eussia — or the two of May 13th, 1895, one at Moestel Pank, 

 Isle of Oesel, in the Baltic, the other at Gnarrenburg, Hanover. From 

 the similarity of the analysis of some siderites that have been found in 

 the United States, at considerable distances apart, Mr. CI. F. Kunz has 

 already inferred that they may have been parts of the same meteorite, 

 which was broken up after entering the air. My table gives strength to 

 that inference and leads much farther. When it is completed as to the 

 past and has received the additions of another generation, it will perhaps 

 be seen that aerolites do not always fly in single file or in closely packed 



