568 COSMOS. 



leads us back, by means of a chain of ideas, through myriads of 

 centuries into the depths of antiquity. Although the impres- 

 sion of light which streams of falling stars, exploding aerolite 

 fire-balls, or similar fire-meteors give, may be of an entirely 

 different nature ; although they may not take fire until they 

 enter the Earth's atmosphere, still the falling aerolites present 

 the solitary instance of a material connection with something 

 which is foreign to our planet. We are astonished " at being 

 able to touch, weigh, and chemically decompose metallic and 

 earthy masses which belong to the outer world, to celestial 

 space," to find in them the minerals of our native earth, 

 making it probable, as the great Newton conjectured, that 

 the materials which belonged to one group of cosmical 

 bodies are for the most part the same. 2 



For the knowledge of the most ancient falls of aerolites 

 which are determined with chronological accuracy, we are 

 indebted to the industry of the all-registering Chinese. Such 

 reports reach back to the year 644 before our era ; therefore 

 to the time of Tyrta3us and the second Messenian \var of the 

 Spartans, 179 years before the fall of the enormous meteoric 

 mass near JEgos Potamos. Edward Biot has found in Ma- 

 tuan-lin, which contains extracts from the astronomical 

 section of the most ancient annals of the empire, sixteen falls 

 of aerolites for the epoch from the middle of the seventh 

 century before Christ up to 333 years after Christ; while 

 the Greek and Roman authors mention only four such phe- 

 nomena during the same space of time. 



It is remarkable that the Ionian school, in accordance with 

 our present opinions, early assumed the cosmical origin of 

 meteoric stones. The impression which such a magnificent 

 phenomenon as that of 2Egos Potamos (at a point which 

 became still more celebrated sixty-two years afterwards by 



2 Cosmos, vol. i. p. 120. 



