224 David Forbes — On Meteorites. 



anointed it with oil, and made offerings of glass beads. On his first 

 visit Dr. Barth was not even allowed to see it ; but some three years 

 later, when the country was devastated by war and famine, he 

 managed to secure possession of it, and in 1859 deposited it in 

 Munich. 



The notion that meteoric stones contained within them hidden 

 treasures seems to have been prevalent in some parts of Europe, an 

 idea which may possibly have suggested itself from the known 

 custom, in still older times, of secreting valuables within images of 

 the gods to protect them from pillage ; but, be that as it may, in- 

 stances of meteoric falls are recorded, even in this century, in which 

 the spectators, once recovered from the mortal fright occasioned by 

 the phenomenon, have allowed their cupidity to overcome their 

 veneration, by smashing the newly-arrived stone into fragments, 

 in order to see whether it did not contain gold or precious stones 

 within it. 



If this idea obtained amongst the prehistoric inhabitants of the 

 earth, which however is unlikely, the disappointment experienced 

 on their not finding gold within would, in many instances, be more 

 than compensated for by the discovery that they contained a metal 

 infinitely more valuable to them than gold, viz. native iron, easy of 

 being shaped, even with their rude stone implements, into cutting 

 tools excelling anything they previously owned. There cannot be 

 a doubt as to the meteoric origin of the first iron implements, and 

 that this was ages before the art of extracting iron from its ores had 

 been perfected. The iron weapons mentioned by Homer as in use at 

 the time of the siege of Troy, some eleven centuries before the 

 Christian era, were most probably made from meteoric iron, which 

 would account for the enormous value, as compared with other 

 metals, which was at that early period put upon them. In the 

 Greek mythology we are also told that the thunderbolts of Jupiter 

 were forged by Vulcan, which would indicate the knowledge that 

 meteorites were at times composed of iron ; and it is not unfair to 

 suppose something more than a mere accidental coincidence in the Latin 

 word "sideres," "the stars," resembling so much the Greek for iron, 

 crtSrjpo'; — a coincidence possibly arising from the observation that 

 certain stars seen to fall to the ground were composed of meteoric iron. 



According to Mongolian traditions, a black mass of rock, some 

 forty feet in height, fell in a plain near the sources of the 

 Yellow Eiver, in Western China; and we read in Eastern stories of 

 magic swords forged from iron which had but recently fallen from 

 heaven, a manufacture which was imitated by Captain Sowerby, 

 who some half century ago had one made of meteoric iron, and 

 presented it to the Emperor Alexander of Eussia. 



It is quite certain, however, that in many parts of the globe the 

 first iron known to the inhabitants was a meteoric product — as for 

 example in Mexico, where iron had never been smelted, the Indians 

 of Toluca employed for making their agricultural implements 

 meteorites which had fallen in very large numbers in that district ; 

 in Siberia the Jakuts also use similar iron for their weapons ; and in 



