72 SCENERY IN A PATCH 



earth as a physical truth, scarcely amounting to half a cen- 

 tury, few years have elapsed without a known instance of 

 descent occurring in some region of the globe. To the list, 

 already given, upward of seventy cases might be added, 

 which have transpired during the last forty years. A report 

 relating to one of the most recent, which fell in a valley 

 near the Cape of Good Hope, with the affidavits of the wit- 

 nesses, was communicated to the Royal Society by Sir John 

 Herschel, in March 1840. Previously to the descent, the 

 usual sound of explosion was heard, and some of the frag- 

 ments falling upon grass caused it instantly to smoke, and 

 were too hot to admit of being touched. When, however, 

 we consider the wide range of the ocean, and the vast unoc- 

 cupied regions of the globe, its mountains, deserts, and for- 

 ests, we can hardly fail to admit that the observed cases of 

 descent must form but a small proportion of the actual num- 

 ber ; and obviously in countries upon which the human race 

 are thickly planted, many may escape notice through de- 

 scending in the night, and will lie imbedded in the soil till 

 some accidental circumstance exposes their existence. Some 

 too are no doubt completely fused and dissipated in the at- 

 mosphere, while others move by us horizontally as brilliant 

 lights, and pass into the depths of space. The volume of 

 some of these passing bodies is very great. One which trav- 

 eled within twenty-Jive miles of the surface, and cast down 

 a fragment, was supposed to weigh upward of 'half a mil- 

 lion of tons. But for its great velocity of about twenty 

 miles in a second, the whole mass would have been precipi- 

 ted to the earth. 



A multitude of theories have been devised to account for 

 the origin of these remarkable bodies, but hitherto no defi- 

 nite conclusion has been arrived at respecting them. Ad- 

 mitting the existence of such bodies to be placed beyond all 

 doubt, the question of their origin, whether original accu- 

 mulations of matter, old as the planetary orbs, or the dis- 



