70 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



denominations, and the meteorite has no doubt given rise to the 

 miscalled thunderbolt. • 



In barbarous times, when onine ignotum pro mirifico prevailed^ 

 /. I?., when all that was unaccountable was looked on as a miracle, 

 these missiles were ascribed to the anger of an offended Deity, and 

 antiquarians even attribute to them the origin of the religious defer- 

 ence paid to the worship of stones amongst the nations of early 

 days. The image of Diana mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, 

 as believed by the Ephesians^^to have fallen down from Jupiter, and 

 the Palladium or sacred statue of Minerva, said to have fallen from 

 heaven, and to have been preserved in Troy as a treasure, on the 

 safety ©f which that of the city depended, had each, no doubt, this 

 origin. It is only of late years that the attention of scientists has 

 been given to ascertaining the origin of these falhng bodies, philoso- 

 phers having, up to 1802, regarded the idea of solid bodies being 

 precipitated to the earth as entertained by the ancients, a vulgar 

 error. In that year Mr. Howard submitted to the Royal Society a 

 paper containing an accurate examination of testimony connected 

 with such events, and a minute analysis of several of these sub- 

 stances which were said to have fallen in different parts of the globe. 

 This excited an animated discussion, and led to a more careful 

 study of the subject which in the last three or four years has had 

 more light thrown on it than in all previous time, and there is now 

 scarcely any scientific periodical which does not contain allusion 

 more or less pointed, to meteors and meteorites. 



Meteorites are divided into three groups, of which the disting- 

 uishing feature lies in the relative amounts and arrangement of the 

 iron and stony material, or silicates, which they contain. All contain 

 iron, almost invariably associated with nickel and cobalt. The 

 three divisions are aeoroliies, aerosiderites, and aerosiderolites. An 

 aerolite is a meteorite composed chiefly of stony material, but con- 

 taining nodules of nickeliferous iron. An aerosiderite is composed 

 of sohd nickeliferous iron, with little or no stony matter adhering, 

 and an aerosiderolite is an intermediate variety of very rare occur- 

 rence in which the iron forming a skeleton is honey-combed in every 

 direction by the stony portion. Meteorites are not found to contain 

 any new elements, or rather, no elements not common to our earth 

 are held by them ; this leads to the conclusion that throughout the 



