] 50 THUNDEKBOLTS 



shaft. Sometimes they have petrified into iron pyrites or 

 copper compounds, shining like gold, and then they make 

 very noble thunderbolts indeed, heavy as lead, and capable 

 of doing profound mischief if properly directed. At other 

 times they have crystallised hi transparent spar, and then 

 they form very beautiful objects, as smooth and polished 

 as the best lapidary could possibly make them. Belemnites 

 are generally found in immense numbers together, especially 

 in the marlstone quarries of the Midlands, and in the lias 

 cliffs of Dorsetshire. Yet the quarrymen who find them 

 never seem to have their faith shaken in the least by the 

 enormous quantities of thunderbolts that would appear to 

 have struck a single spot with such extraordinary frequency 

 This little fact also tells rather hardly against the theory 

 that the lightning never falls twice upon the same place. 



Only the largest and heaviest belemnites are known as 

 thunder stones ; the smaller ones are more commonly 

 described as agate pencils. In Shakespeare's country 

 their connection with thunder is well known, so that in all 

 probability a belemnite is the original of the beautiful lines 

 in ' Cymbeline ': 



Fear no more the lightning flash, 

 Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone, 



where the distinction between the lightning and the thun- 

 derbolt is particularly well indicated. In every part of 

 Europe belemnites and stone hatchets are alike regarded 

 as thunderbolts ; so that we have the curious result that 

 people confuse under a single name a natural fossil of 

 immense antiquity and a human product of comparatively 

 recent but still prehistoric date. Indeed, I have had two 

 thunderbolts shown me at once, one of which was a large 

 belemnite, and the other a modern Indian tomahawk. 

 Curiously enough, English sailors still call the nearest 



