222 METEORIC STONES. 



Independent of the distinct negative which the external 

 evidence gives to any such conclusions, we are fully entitled 

 to deny that these bodies are formed in the ground by light- 

 ning, or existed previously there, both from their exact resem- 

 blance to each other in whatever part of the earth they have 

 been found, and from their containing substances nowhere 

 else to be met with. It cannot surely be imagined, that 

 exactly in those spots where fire, of some unknown kind, 

 precipitated from an exploded meteor, happened to fall, there 

 should exist certain proportions of iron, sulphur, nickel, 

 magnesia and silica, ready to be united by the heat or elec- 

 tricity. Still less conceivable is it, that in eveiy such fall of 

 fire, those ingredients should first combine, by twos and 

 threes, in the very same manner, and then that the binary 

 and ternary compounds should unite in similar aggregates. 

 But, least of all is it reasonable to suppose, that bodies formed 

 in the earth should, upon being dug up, be found enveloped 

 in a crust diiferent from the rest of their substance, and bear- 

 ing evident marks of having undergone the action of heat in 

 contact with the air. 



The same unquestionable resemblance which prevails 

 among all these bodies, and, still more, the peculiar nature of 

 the pyrites which they contain, prove very clearly that they 

 have not a volcanic origin. Even if such an hypothesis were 

 liable to no other objection, it would be inadmissible on this 

 ground, that we know of no volcano which throws up so 

 small a portion of matter, and so uniformly of the same kind. 

 But though we were to admit the existence of this volcano, 

 where must we place it, that its eruptions may extend from 

 Bengal to England, France, Italy, and Bohemia : nay, from 

 Siberia to Senegal and South America ? And if we are forced 

 to admit the existence of a series of such volcanoes, which are 

 known to us only by these peculiar effects of their eruptions, 

 do we not acknowledge that we are compelled to imagine a 

 set of causes, without any other foundation for our belief in 

 them, than our occasion for their assistance in explaining the 

 phenomenon ? In short, do we not account for one difficulty, 



