37 
ever become necessary. It should be stayed in individual cases 
by continence when the means of subsistence for a family are 
Jacking. But while there are vast tracts of Australasia and 
Canada still comparatively unoccupied, while Africa furnishes a 
vast field for enterprise, this country should take her pre-eminent 
share in colonising and Christianising the world. And in the 
end it might reasonably be hoped that there would be no 
necessity to resort to what was euphemistically designated Neo- 
Malthusianism. 
eee 
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11TH. 
MR. E. A. PANKHURST 
ON 
-THUNDERBOLTS—TRUE AND FALSE. 
Mr. Pankhurst first described the appearance of a thunder- 
bolt. To the ordinary dweller on the chalk or in its neighbour- 
hood, a thunderbolt, he said, is a nodular, smooth, heavy brown 
mass, that on being broken open exhibits a brassy metallic lustre, 
and a radiating structure. Those who have to do with our 
Museum know how ofien these are offered, sometimes at a high 
price, as a valuable addition to our ccllection of rare and curious 
objects. ‘These, however, are not “ bolts ” in any sense of the 
word and are entirely innocent of “thunder.” They are com- 
pounds of sulphur and iron, have been formed quietly in the 
depths of the chalk, and have generally generally been washed out 
of the cliffs by the action of the sea, which has subsequently 
rolled and smoothed them. The things which Jupiter Tonans or 
Thor might have hurled on the earth are very different both in 
structure and composition. 
Notwithstanding many accounts of the fall of stones 
which history records, the scientific men of the last century 
for a long time relused to believe that any bodies came to 
us from extra-terrestrial space. On an undoubtedly genuine 
meteorite being shown to Lavosier, he affirmed that it was 
one of our old friends of the chalk which had been struck by 
lightning. Others said they were formed in the clouds or hurled 
from some volcano, near or distant. In 1803, however, there was 
