METEORITE. 



113 



Meteorite, peopled regions of the globe, a* comets and eclipses 

 '" may have attracted the attention of mortals, though not 



indicated by the inspired pent 



E'idcnr* If from sacred we turn to ti:<- earlx periods of pro- 

 of the ph- fane history, we shall find the annals of pi. 



very copiously interspersed with notices of prodigies 

 and strange appearance*, many of which we may safely 

 " ascribe to the ascendancy which Mtperstition long main- 

 tained over the human mind, so that it becomes ex- 

 treme! v difficult, after the lapse of many ages, and in 

 the coUation of records which savour of the marvel- 

 lous, to separate truth from fiction. Tim-, in regard 

 to the topic before us, we are fully authorised to dis- 

 card from our ex-terrestrial catalogue certain modifica- 

 tions of sulphuret of iron, belemnitei, orthociTatitea, 

 tie. which the observations of intelligent naturalists 

 have proved to be of mineral or animal formation, at 

 also the beads of arrows and sharpened flints which 

 have been fashioned by the hand of man, though the 

 vulgar may, in the earlier stages of society, have attri- 

 buted to them a celestial origin, and ranked them 

 among tk**ilcr-tt<xu : but, when 

 from these, and coinciding in any one 

 Cwmstanee with modern specmMM of 

 affirmed by the ancients U have fallen 

 the remoteneae of the epochs, and the lemrnsss of the 

 document*, may considerably alect our appreciation of 

 the reputed evidence. Hence, when we touch 



l:..irr . _!.'. t' i li '.I t' t l. >.n -<'li.c '! thr 



recent totononie*. we are far I'r 

 certainty even of thr particular instances 

 as the indiacriminate scepticism of the learned i* 

 ly lees reprehensible than the blind credulity of the 

 barbarian, we reckon it fair tu adroit their probability, 

 and the weight which the mention of them may be con- 

 sidered as adding to that of subsequent and 



Ckrtmological llutury of 



>, imlmpmrd trilk 



Crete. 

 OrrboMC- 



SMH. 

 Id*. 



Aacjle. 



M M 

 A . 



A. C . 1 478. The thunder-stone in Crete, 

 by MaLltiu. Par. fVan.-ISOO. S 

 Orchomno*. Paiuan. ll6S. A mass 'of iron, m 

 Mount Ida. in Cn-t. rwi. 705, or 7O*. The 



Sacred SJueU, or Ancyl- fell in the reign of 



NUBM, of nearly the same shape with the mass that fell 

 at Agram. But, if it really was of sVwst, and fell iota 

 Xuma'i hand*, as menltmwd by Ffaeavea, we may well 

 suspect a DtoM/nuW 654. During the reign of Tul- 

 lettOMM. a shower of stone* fell on Mount Alba, 

 and, when the senate deputed cummiseioners to aseer- 

 Uin the fact, they were assured that stones had really 

 fallen, a* thick as hail impelled by the 

 events, adds the eloquent Lt*y. were < 

 festival of nine day*. At that period, then, 

 stones wa* solemnly recognised as a super 

 the nature of the meases, bowi 



particularly described ; and, on 

 the same historian has usually r 

 expression lifiditmt plan 



or 

 early 



to the 



tithout farther 

 According t 



i of China make mention of five stnues 

 fallen from the hreveas, in the district of Song. 

 690. A stone fell in Crete, in the time rf 



the 60th chapter of the 

 book of his Natural History, i 

 in the day time, of a atony i 



VOL. XIV. PAT I. 



, M large as a cart, and 



of a burnt colour, near Epospotamos in Thrace, and Meteorite. 

 affirms that it wa? rtill exhibited in his time. The ~ 

 maemlndine irAii of this nutlmr m.iy probably mean, 

 that it was of such dime: t it could be con- ' 



veyed in a cart ; and fome comim- id i-ftulii- 



tu. The Oreeks pretended that it had fallen from the 

 sun, and that Anaxagoras had predicted tin- d.-iy of its 

 arrival on thr earth's surface. Such a prediction, the 

 naturalist observes, would have been more marvellous 

 than the stone ; and all knowledge, he adds, must be 

 confounded, if either we admit the sun to be a stone, 

 or a stone to fall from that luminary to the earth. ^> > : , 

 whatever may have been the ingenious or the absurd 

 kurniisei of those days, the reputed event became a 

 subject of such notoriety, that the author of the Athe- 

 nian Chronicle, a document published by Silden, along 

 with the Arundelisn mar! - it under 



the 58th epoch, and in the 1 13th year of the Attic or 

 Cecropian era. That Anaxagoras foretold the day of 

 the fall, may as well be doubted, as that Sir William 

 Herscbel should have lent himself to the occupation 

 of Moore the almanack-maker : but we learn from a 



in the fint book of Silemn, preserved by 

 Laertius, that the incident w h eh we are now 

 idei >, suggested to the ; r of Clazomene 



hypothesit delivered to his ili-ci|iles, 



ely, that the sky wa* a solid vault, composed of 

 large stones, which its rotatory motion kept at a due 

 distance from the centre, to which they would, other- 

 wise, inevitably tend. We may aUo remark, that Pliny 

 broadly asserts the frequent u< < t ti.e \ 



lamru crtliro, kaud erit tluliinm. Some 

 relati\e to the Thracfan stone have 

 likewise been preserved by Plutarch . in his Life of 

 Lysander. It fell, he remark*, at KKospotamos, was 

 of enermou* dimensions, and was exhibited as a public 

 spectacle by the people of the Chersoneiut, who held 

 it in great veneration. Hi* account of the meteor i* 

 principally borrowed from Damachu* or Daimachus, 

 whom Strabo represents a* addicted to fiction, and ig- 

 norant of geonv 



seventy- five successive days," says the bio- 

 graph. -ie. a large fiery 

 body, like a cloud nf flame, was n the hea- 

 ven, not f- > point, but wandering alxmt with 

 a broken, irregular motion, la consequence of its vio- 

 lent agitation, several flaming fragment* were forced 

 from it, which were . -i various directions, and 

 darted with the velocity and splendour of so many 

 falling stars. After thi body had alighted in the 

 C'hersoneu, and the inl . their 

 alarm, had assembled to see it, they could perceive no 

 iaiammable matter, nor the slightest trace of fire, but 

 a real atone, which, though large, was nothing when 

 to the volume of that fire-ball which they 

 n the sky, but appeared only as a piece de- 

 from it." " It if obvious," continues Plutarch, 

 " that Damachus must have very indulgent readers, if 

 this account nf his gains credit. If it u a true one, it 

 completely refutes those who allege that this stone was 

 merely a rock, torn by a tempest from the top of a 

 mountain, and which, after being conveyed for some 

 time in the air, by means of a whirlwind, settled on 

 the first spot where the violence of the Litter abated. 

 This phenomenon, which lasted for so many days, 

 was, perhaps, after all, a real globe of fire, which, when 

 h> dispersed, and became nearly extinct, might induce 

 such a change in the air, and generate such a whirl- 

 r 



