210 Outlines of Meteoric Astronomy. 



of large size, with a strange inscription, written in three lan- 

 guages, Latin, French, and German : — 



" In fourteen hundred ninety-two 

 There happened here a great ado ; 

 For close without, before the town, 

 The seventh of November's moon, 

 A stone was fall'n and there it lay, j 



With thunder, and in open day ! 

 Two hundred and a half it weighed. 

 Its colour iron. Then they made 

 Procession, and 'twas hither borne, 

 But much by force from it was torn." 



The remainder of the sfcone, weighing only 16 lbs., was 

 removed to the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where 

 it is the most ancient known example of an aerolite of which 

 authentic accounts have been preserved. Many such instances 

 were however not wanting in later years, and a monk was 

 struck and killed at Padua by an aerolite in 1660. Toaldo 

 on this occasion proposed to consider them as projected from 

 volcanoes on the moon. More recently, namely, in the year 

 1768, not less than three aerolites fell in different parts of 

 France. Of these the stone of Luce was given to be analysed 

 by the French Academy to the great chemist Lavoisier, who 

 four years later returned his opinion that the reputed meteorite 

 was a mass of iron pyrites that had been disfigured by light- 

 ning, and at the same time exposed to view in the place where 

 it was found. This mistaken verdict of Lavoisier led to the 

 error by which certain nodules of iron pyrites having a rough 

 surface and radiated structure are 'still vulgarly known in 

 England by the name of " thunderbolts." These of course are 

 totally earthy concretions, altogether different in their nature 

 and origin from real meteoric stones. Montanari and Ferret 

 had proposed to consider that aerolites are projected by 

 earthly volcanoes, and Jussieu laboured to prove that 

 aerolites are at least a different class of minerals from fossil 

 shells or flint arrow-heads and implements. Nevertheless, 

 after the verdict of Lavoisier, the reality of such occurrences 

 was wholly discredited in France. Nor was opinion more 

 settled with regard to luminous meteors, but one meteorologist, 

 Toaldo, ascribed all fiery meteors to the combustion of pure 

 " Phlogiston," or hydrogen, and Muschenbroeck attributed 

 shooting-stars, like Aristotle, to humid exhalations from the 

 ground, especially in marshy places, where, and on the banks 

 of rivers, he remarked, their gelatinous residues might often be 

 discovered on the ground. In 1 752, Franklin and Dalibard 

 discovered the source of lightning in atmospheric electricity. 

 This discovery acquired great fame, and Pringle, in 1758, 

 and Blagden in 1783, attributed to this agent the two remark- 



