AEROLITES, OR METEORIC STONES. 105 



addressed to the understanding rather than to the imagina- 

 tion, modern science has been accused, with some degree of 

 justice, of only endeavouring to allay fears which she has 

 herself contributed to excite. That the unexpected and extra- 

 ordinary should oftener excite fearthan joy or hope( 57 ), springs 

 from a source more deeply seated in our common nature. 

 The strange aspect of a large comet, its faint nebulous gleam, 

 its sudden appearance in the vault of heaven, have almost 

 always, and in all regions of the earth, been viewed as the 

 portentous heralds of impending change in the established 

 order of things. The phenomenon itself being of short dura- 

 tion, its reflection is the more naturally looked for in cotem- 

 poraneous or immediately succeeding events, and it is seldom 

 difficult to fix on some incident which may be interpreted as 

 the calamity foreshewn. Inourowntime, however, the popular 

 mind has taken another and more cheerful, though singular, 

 direction in respect to comets. Among the German vine- 

 yards, in the beautiful valleys of the Rhine and the Moselle, 

 a favourable influence on the ripening of the grape and on 

 the quality of the wine has been ascribed to these bodies 

 long regarded as so ill-omened : nor has experience of a 

 contrary kind, which has not been wanting in these days 

 when comets have been so often seen, been able to shake 

 the belief in this meteorological fable of wandering heat- 

 imparting stars. 



I now proceed from the consideration of comets to that 

 of another and still more enigmatical class of bodies ; namely, 

 to those minute asteroids, which, when they arrive in a frag- 

 mentary state within our atmosphere, we designate by the 

 names of "aerolites," or "meteoric stones." If I dwell at 



