136 Prof. Maskelyne and Dr. Lang's Miner alogical Notes. 



nomena so extraordinary. In their main features such accounts 

 are no doubt true ; but their truth is mixed with the exaggera- 

 tion due to mental excitement, and with the erroneous observa- 

 tion that must needs result where an almost instantaneous event 

 has been witnessed, or rather where a series of events have 

 succeeded each other so rapidly as only to interrupt during one 

 brief moment of terror and amazement the placid calm of a 

 summer's day. 



It may be doubted whether a highly educated and a scientifi- 

 cally trained person would in general relate the facts better 

 (that is to say, more simply) than a poor Indian villager, whose 

 graphic expressions and simple language deserve a careful 

 estimate at the hands of those who would interpret them 

 fairly. What is remarkable in these narratives in general is, 

 their frequent concurrence upon certain points. And where 

 evidence gathered in different latitudes, at various times, and 

 from persons to whom the phenomena are entirely new, concurs 

 in associating certain facts with the fall of an aerolite, we are 

 bound to attach weight to that evidence, however apparently 

 inexplicable the phenomena it records may be. The sound as o v 

 thunder that precedes instead of following the aerolite whos( 

 motion is so much swifter than that of sound in the air in it; 

 ordinary state — the appearance of a light, as of lightning falling 

 from heaven, distinct from the actual mass of the aerolite itseli 

 (perhaps a dissociation due only to an optical delusion) — the 

 occasional coldness of the stone (so well explained by Hofrath 

 Haidinger) — the extraordinary loudness of the explosions — the 

 supposed alteration in the solidity of the mass after exposure to 

 (damp ?) air — the frequent connexion of the fall of an aerolite with 

 a derangement of the electrical condition of the atmosphere, as 

 asserted by the statements which associate the fall with a thunder 

 shower, or otherwise with thunder and lightning, — these are some 

 of the phenomena on which evidence has on several occasions been 

 concurrent ; and assuredly the statements regarding them are the 

 records of facts, though they may have to be cleared of whatever 

 is the result of imperfect observation before we can see those facts 

 in their true light and eliminate from them the element of the 

 marvellous with which they are alloyed. Nor does the circum- 

 stance that the phenomena recorded as witnessed are not the 

 same in the case of every aerolite, at all militate against the accu- 

 racy of or degree of reliance to be placed on these several records. 

 We have a remarkable instance of this in the association with 

 some cases of aerolitic falls, and the absence from others, of 

 explosive reports heard at the actual locality of the fall, as also 

 in the diversity of circumstances recorded regarding the tempe- 

 rature of the freshly fallen mass in different cases. 



