AEROLITES. 99 



diameter of the Moon, innumerable quantities of shooting 

 stars have, on the other hand, been observed to fall in forms 

 of such extremely small dimensions, that they appear only as 

 moving points, or phosphorescent lines* 



It still remains undetermined whether the many luminous 

 bodies that shoot across the sky may not vary in their nature. 

 On my return from the equinoctial zones, I was impressed 

 vrith an idea that in the torrid regions of the tropics I had 

 more frequently than in our colder latitudes seen shooting 



lying at an elevation of 5583 feet above the level of the sea, and at noon, 

 when the sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky, saw his room 

 lighted up by a fire ball. He had his back to the window at the time, 

 and en turning round, perceived that great part of the path traversed by 

 the fire ball was still illuminated by the brightest radiance. Different 

 nations have had the most various terms to express these phenomena, 

 the Germans use the word Sternschnuppe, literally star snuff an 

 expression well suited to the physical views of the vulgar in former 

 times, according to which, the lights in the firmament were said to 

 undergo a process of snuffing or cleaning, and other nations generally 

 adopt a term expressive of a shot or fall of stars, as the Swedish stjernj- 

 fall the Italian stdla cadente, and the English star-shoot. In the woody 

 district of the Orinoco, on the dreary banks of the Cassiquiare, I heard 

 the natives in the Mission of Vasiva use terms still more inelegant than 

 the German star snuff. (Relation Historique du Voy. aux Region* 

 equinox., t. ii. p. 513). These same tribes term the pearly drops of 

 dew which cover the beautiful leaves of the heliconia, star-spit. In the 

 Lithuanian mythology the imagination of the people has embodied its 

 ideas of the nature and signification of falling stars under nobler and 

 more graceful symbols. The Parcae, Werpeja, weave in heaven for 

 the new-born child its thread of fate, attaching each separate thread to 

 a star. When death approaches the person, the thread is rent, and the 

 star wanes and sinks to the earth. Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 

 1843, s. 685. 



* According to the testimony of Professor Denison Olmsted, of Yale 

 College, New Haven, Connecticut. (See Poggend. A nnalen der Physik, 

 bd. xxx. s. 194.) Kepler, who excluded fire balls and shooting stars 

 from the domain of astronomy, because they were, according to his 

 views, " meteors arising from the exhalations of the earth, and blending 

 with the higher ether," expresses himself, however, generally with much 

 caution. He says : " Stellce cadentes sunt materia mscida, inflammata. 

 Eurum aliguce inter cadendum absumuntur, aliquce vere in terram 

 cadunt, pondere suo tractce. Nee est dissi mile vero, quasdam conglo- 

 batas esse ex materia fceculentd, in ipsam auram cetheream immixta : 

 exque aetheris regione, tractu rectilineo, per afrem trajicere, ceu 

 minutos cometas, occultd causa motus utrorumque." Kepler, Epit. 

 A siren. Copernicance, t. i. p. 80. 



K 3 



