from the Clouds, or Aerolites. 210 



between midnight and noon, and still these stones were only 

 precipitated at the more advanced hours of the morning, i. e. be- 

 tween eight and eleven o'clock. On one occasion only, this 

 phenomenon was observed between eleven o'clock in the even- 

 ing and six in the morning, Avhereas we have evidence of thirty- 

 six falls between noon and midnight, and still the greater part 

 took place between three o'clock in the afternoon and sunset. 



Tile geographical situation of the places where stones have 

 hitherto fallen, is by no means a subject of indifference to these 

 observers. It seems, in fact, that the number of these meteors 

 decreases with the distance from any place to the equator : thus, 

 none have been as yet seen in Sweden or Denmark, and it has 

 only been in tlie south part of Russia that four have been found j 

 and lastly, six only have been witnessed in England. The num- 

 ber of aerolites has on the other hand been very great in Italy, 

 France, and Germany. 



The weather seems to have a certain influence over the fall of 

 stones ; for we have heard of none which have taken place in 

 cloudy weather, during a great rain, or abundant snow, or, 

 lastly, during a high wind, particularly when it was northerly, 

 north-ea-,t or easterly. Of forty-three falls of stones, the wea- 

 ther during which was noticed, twenty-nine happened in warm 

 and serene weather, and the thirtieth and thirty-first were mani- 

 fested while the sky presented some scattered and insulated 

 clouds. The remaining twelve were accompanied by very vio^ 

 lent storms of rain and hail, such as the falls of aerolites in 

 1 103, 1249, and 1552. The pressure of the atmosphere seems 

 also to diminish before or after the fall. This was observed in 

 180G at Alais, at Stannern in Moravia in 1808, and at Maur- 

 kirchen in Bavaria in 1811, when the sky was cloudy a little 

 before and after the meteor. 



After having shown the circumstances which accompany the 

 fall of aerolites, the authors of the theory in question proceed 

 to discuss their oiigin. Out of twenty-nine falls of stones which 

 took place in serene weather, twenty seemed to issue from a 

 very extensive but round cloud, black or variable in colour ac- 

 cording to the colour of the stones themselves: thus, tijc cloud 

 was white in the fall which took place at Burgos, and the stones 

 were also white. At all times tlie cloud seems essential to those 

 meteors, for from it proceeds the noise which accompanies or 

 which precedes the fall of aerolites ; and from it, the stones 

 proceed. The extent of these meteors is not less in general 

 than from half to a whole league in diameter, a size very dif- 

 ferent from that of the stones themselves, the mass of which is 

 frequently of very small dimensions. We cannot account for 

 this difference, by admitting that the vapours of the atmosphere 



give 



