270 METEORS AND AEROLITES. 



prediction, like many others, doubtless following after the 

 event. It is expressly mentioned by Aristotle ; by the author 

 of the Parian Chronicle ; by Diogenes of Apollonia, who 

 speaks of it as ' falling in flames ; ' and most fully by Plutarch 

 and Pliny, both of whom distinctly state it to be shown in 

 their time that is, in the sixth century after its fall. 

 Pliny's description is well marked Qui lapis etiam nunc 

 ostenditur, magnitudine vehis, colore adusto ; and he adds the 

 fact that a burning comet accompanied its descent.* 



We see no cause whatever to doubt the authenticity of this 

 statement, of which the very phrase colore adusto is a striking 

 verification. If the mass remained visible down to Pliny's 

 time, and of such magnitude as described, it is far from im- 

 possible that it may even now be re-discovered ; with the 

 aid perchance of some stray tradition attached to the place, 

 surviving as so often happens, the lapse of ages, the changes 

 of human dominion, and even the change of race itself on 

 the spot. Only one slight effort, as far as we know, has been 

 made for the recovery of this ancient aerolite. We wonder 

 that some of our many Oriental travellers do not abstract a 

 few days from the seraglios, mosques, and bazaars of Con- 

 stantinople (and, we fear, we must further add, from the 

 lounging life of the Pera hotels) to engage deliberately in 

 the attempt. Fame earned by discovery in travel is no longer 

 so common a commodity that the chances of it should be 



* Plutarch, who reasons with force and pertinency as to the origin of this 

 stone (in Vita Lysandri), explicitly states that it was still held in much vene- 

 ration by the inhabitants of the Chersonesus. He also speaks of its vast size, 

 and of the tradition of a fiery cloud or globe which preceded its fall. In his 

 book De Placit. Philos. he alludes to it again, as irupoetScbs Karevex^^ 70 - &<rTfpa 

 irerpivov. Pliny mentions a smaller meteoric stone, religiously preserved in 

 the gymnasium at Abydos, also said to have been predicted by Anaxagoras. 

 This coincidence of time and place might lead to the suspicion that both were 

 derived from the same meteor. He further notices a stone of recent fall which 

 he had himself seen at Vocontii in the province of Grallia Narboneusis now 

 Vaison in Provence. 



