66 



5 CIENCE- COS SIP. 



stone which was seen to fall at Dhuramsala, in the 

 Punjab. To their great surprise, these people 

 found the meteorolite so intensely cold that it was 

 unpleasant to handle. This unexpected charac- 

 teristic of newly-fallen stones, coupled with their 

 apparently unnatural source, led in ancient times 

 to much superstition, and a general disbelief in 

 their true origin. 



One of the earliest meteorites of which there is 

 any record, is reverenced by the Moslems as of 

 Divine origin. It is built into the north-eastern 

 corner of the wall of the Kaaba at Mecca. This 

 stone has been more than once examined by 

 specialists in the study of meteorites and pro- 

 nounced to be genuine. It was not until the middle 

 and end of the 15th century that we got anything 

 like a trustworthy account of the fall of meteor- 

 ites. One of the most celebrated fell on the 7th 

 of November, 1492, according to a document Icept 

 in the parish church of Ensisheim in Alsace. It 



earth from space, men of education and such scien- 

 tific training as was available, declined to believe in- 

 meteorites reaching this planet. If, said they, the- 

 stones did come down at all, they came from somo 

 volcano, even those of the moon being suggested. 



About a hundred and fifty years ago attention 

 began to be given to the subject, and since then 

 information has been more or less systematically 

 collected on the fall of meteorites. Among the 

 best known is one that fell at Luce, in France, on 

 September 3rd, 1768. Four years later this vvras- 

 examined by two gentlemen sent by the French 

 Academy, who reported that it was a stone which 

 had been struck by lightning. 



In r772, the eminent traveller Pallas had brought 

 to his notice a mass of iron weighing about 

 i,5oolb. This was found on the surface of Mount 

 Kemirs, near Abekansk, in Siberia. No iron 

 occurs in the neighbourhood. It was stated by the- 

 Tartars to be "a holy thing sent from Heaven," 



You.NDEGiN Meteoric Iron Mass, weighing z,o^s,\.k. 



states: — "A singular miracle happened, for be- 

 tween II and 12 iri the forenoon, with a loud crash 

 of thunder and a lasting noise heard afar off, there 

 fell near the town of Ensisheim a stone weighing 

 26glb. It was seen by a child to strike the ground 

 in a field near the Canton called Gisgaud, wdiere it 

 made a hole of more than jft. deep. It was trans- 

 ported to the church as a miraculous object. The 

 noise was heard so distinctly at Lucerne, Villing, 

 and many other places, that in each it was thought 

 that some houses had fallen. King Maximilian, 

 who was then at Ensisheim, had the stone carried _ 

 to the Castle. After breaking off two piece?, one 

 for Duke Sigismund of Austria, and the other for 

 himself, the King forbade further damage, and 

 ordered the stone to be suspended in the church." 

 After deportation for a time to the Library at 

 Colmar, this meteorite was returned, and yet hangs 

 above the choir of the church. 



Still, in the face of this and other apparently 

 authentic evidences of mineral masses reaching the 



and is now in the Museum at St. Petersburg, being 

 known as the Pallas-iron. 



In the Pavilion of the mineral department at the 

 British Museum, Cromwell Road, London, is part 

 of a mass of iron, weighing 1,^00 lb. It was 

 found, in r783, in the province of Tucuman, in 

 South America. The whole bulk from which this 

 specimen originated is estimated to have weighed 

 no less than 30,0001b., and seems without doubt 

 to have' been an immense siderite. In 1794, on 

 the 17th June, there was quite a shower of stones 

 in the neighbourhood of Siena, in Tuscany. This- 

 is one of the cases of coincidence with a thunder- 

 storm. About a dozen of these were found, but at 

 the time were attributed to an eruption of Vesuvius. 



On December 13th, 1795, a stone weighing 

 561b. fell within ten yards from a man who was 

 working at Wold Cottage, Thwing, in Yorkshire. 

 It buried itself through twelve inches of soil, six 

 inches further into the solid chalk. On the evening 

 of December 19th, 1798, another shower of stones. 



