268 METEOKS AND AEROLITES. 



Though the subject of Meteors was now brought within 

 the domain of science, the difficulty remained of giving any 

 classification to the phenomena, on which to base enquiry 

 into their causes and physical connections. On what prin- 

 ciple was it possible to arrange appearances so vague and 

 various in time, place, magnitude, and brilliancy? Even 

 now the simplest division is perhaps the only one admissible ; 

 expressing little more than those external aspects to which 

 we have already alluded, without reference to the physical 

 causes which are doubtless concerned in their varieties. First 

 in order we have the globes or balls of light (bolides), ap- 

 pearing suddenly, often loudly exploding, and having certain 

 physical characters to which we shall afterwards advert. 

 Secondly, falling or shooting-stars (etoiles filantes\ seen 

 at all times and in all countries, but more numerously at 

 certain periods, and more frequently under the clear skies 

 of tropical regions. Thirdly, Aerolites or meteoric stones, 

 differing greatly in size and form, but with various charac- 

 ters showing some common cause or origin, and this wholly 

 alien to the planet on which they fall. 



The spirit of enquiry awakened on the subject of Meteors, 

 and its objects thus far defined, it was natural to recur to 

 history and tradition for evidences of similar phenomena in 

 prior ages. This research, as we have already intimated, was 

 fertile of curious results derived as well from the classical 

 writers of Greece and Kome, as from the records of the dark 

 ages and of every intervening century to our own time. The 

 most remote regions, as well as periods, contributed to this 

 testimony ; the facts sometimes coloured by superstition, 

 sometimes obscured by imperfect report ; but numerous and 

 exact enough for comparison with our own observations, and 

 giving full proof of the identity of the phenomena through- 

 out. Poetry naturally busied itself with these vagrant lights 

 of heaven; and we might cite various passages from the 



