29 



SHOOTING STARS AND AEROLITES. 



I now pass from comets to another and yet 

 more enigmatical class of agglomerated matter, 

 to the smallest of all asteroids, which, in their 

 fragmentary condition, and when they have 

 arrived in our atmosphere, we designate by 

 the name of Aerolites, or Meteoric Stones. If 

 I dilate at greater length on these bodies than 

 I have done on comets, and accumulate those 

 individual features which should otherwise be 

 excluded from a general survey of nature, it is 

 done with a purpose. The very remarkable 

 characteristic diversities of comets have been 

 long known. From the little that has yet been 

 learned of their physical condition, it is diffi- 

 cult, in an exposition such as is here required, 

 to seize the Common, and to separate the Ne- 

 cessary from the Accidental, in phenomena 

 observed with very different degrees of accu- 

 racy. The measuring and calculating astron- 

 omy of comets has alone made marvellous 

 progress. In this state of our knowledge, a 

 scientific consideration must be limited to phys- 

 iognomical differences in the fashion of the 

 nucleus and tail ; to examples of close approxi- 

 mations to other planetary bodies ; to extremes 

 in orbits with reference to space, and in pe- 

 riods of revolution to time. Natural truth in 

 these, as in the phenomena that are immedi- 

 ately to be spoken of, is only to be attained 

 by a delineation of the Individual, and by the 

 animated and contemplative expression of re- 

 ality. 



Shooting Stars, Fire-balls, and Meteoric 

 Stones, are, with great appearance of proba- 

 bility, regarded as small masses moving with 

 planetary velocity in conic sections round the 

 sun, in harmony with the laws of universal 

 gravitation. When these masses encounter 

 the Earth in their course, and, attracted by it, 

 become luminous on the verge of our atmo- 

 sphere, they frequently let fall stony fragments, 

 heated in greater or less degree, and covered 

 on their surface with a black and shining crust. 

 By careful analysis of all that has been observ- 

 ed at different epochs when great numbers of 

 shooting stars have fallen, as at Cumana in 

 1799, in North America in 1833 and 1834, &c., 

 it seems no longer proper to separate fire-balls 

 from shooting stars. I3oth phenomena are not 

 only frequently contemporaneous aitd inter- 

 mingled, but they also pass into one another, 

 and this whether we pay particular attention 

 to the dimensions of the discs, to the sparks or 

 trains of fire which they emit, or to the veloci- 

 ties of their respective motions. Whilst there 

 are fire-balls that have the apparent diameter 

 of the moon, that explode and emit smoke, and 

 possess such brilliancy that they can be seen 

 at noon-day(**), there are, on the other hand, 

 shooting stars in countless multitudes, of such 

 small dimensions that they only present them- 

 selves to the eye in the form of moving points 

 or of phosphorescent lines("). But whether 

 or not among the many luminous bodies that 

 shoot through the sky in the form of falling 

 stars and meteors, there are not several of dif- 

 ferent natures, remains to be shown. Occu- 

 pied, shortly after my return home, with the 

 impression which the phenomena of shooting 

 stars had left upon my mind, and remembering 

 that I had observed them in greater numbers, 

 of brighter colours, and more commonly ac- 



companied by long and brilliant trains, both on 

 intertropical plains just raised above the level 

 of the sea, and on mountains at the height of 

 twelve and even fifteen thousand feet above 

 its surface, than in the temperate and frigid 

 zones, I soon perceived that the ground of the 

 more vivid impression lay in the glorious trans- 

 parency of the tropical atmosphere itself(3''). 

 There one sees deeper into space. Sir Alex- 

 ander Burnes, too, speaks of the magnificent 

 and constantly recurring spectacle of coloured 

 shooting stars, which he enjoyed in Bokhara, 

 and which he attributes to the purity of the at- 

 mosphere. 



The connection of meteoric stones with the 

 grander and more brilliant phenomena of fire- 

 balls — that stones actually fall from these fire- 

 balls, and penetrate ten or fifteen feet into the 

 ground, has been shown, among many other 

 instances of the kind, by the well-known fall 

 of aerolites at Barbotan, in the department Des 

 Landes, on the 24th July, 1790, at Lima on the 

 16th of June, 1794, at Weston, in Connecticut, 

 on the 14th of December, 1807, and at Juvenas, 

 in the department of Ardeche, on the 15th of 

 June, 1821. Other phenomena connected with 

 the fall of aerolites are those where the masses 

 have descended, shaken, as it were, from the 

 bosom of a small dark cloud, which had formed 

 suddenly in the midst of a clear sky, accompa- 

 nied with a noise that has been compared to 

 the report of a single piece of artillery. Whole 

 districts of country have occasionally been cov- 

 ered with thousands of fragments of stones, 

 of very dissimilar magnitudes, but like consti- 

 tution, which had been rained down from a pro- 

 gressive cloud of the kind described. In rarer 

 instances, as in that which occurred at Klein- 

 wenden, not far from Miihlhausen, on the 16th 

 of September, 1843, large aerolites have fallen 

 amidst a noise like thunder, when the sky was 

 clear and without the formation of any cloud. 

 The close affinity between fire-balls and shoot- 

 ing stars is also shown by the fact of instances 

 having occurred, of the former throwing down 

 stones, though they had scarcely the diameter 

 of the balls that are projected from our fire- 

 works called Roman candles. This happened 

 notably at Angers on the 9th of June, 1822. 



With regard to the form-producing forces, 

 the physical and chemical processes in these 

 phenomena, we are still completely in the dark. 

 We know not whether the particles which form 

 the compact mass of the aerolite lay originally 

 apart from one another, in the shape of vapour, 

 as in comets, and first contracted and ran to- 

 gether when they began to lighten within the 

 gleaming ball ; we know nothing of what takes 

 place in the black cloud, where it sometimes 

 continues to thunder for minutes before the 

 stones descend ; neither are we aware wheth- 

 er from the smaller shooting stars there be any 

 precipitation of solid matter, or only an attenu- 

 ated dry haze, or a ferruginous and nickeliferous 

 meteoric dust(3'). We, however, know the im- 

 mense, the wonderful and perfectly planetary 

 rapidity of shooting stars, fire-balls, and mete- 

 oric stones ; we recognise the General in ref- 

 erence to them, and in this Generality perceive 

 uniformity of phenomena only, nothing of ge- 

 netical cosmic process, the consequence of 

 change. If meteoric stones revolve already 



