Marvels of the Universe 



453 



from as fax back as 644 B.C., but so far as we know the stones themselves have not been preserved. 

 Of those that can still be seen the oldest is that which has been for centuries an object of venera- 

 tion, if not worship, of hosts of Mohammedans, and which is still to be seen built in the wall of the 

 holv Kaaba, at ]Mecca. Its history goes back to the seventh century. There appears to have 

 been another which fell in Thrace about 470 B.C., and which, five hundred years later, was stated 

 by PUny to have been still in existence, although all further record of it has since been lost. 



Amongst the more famous of recent falls we have that which fell at Ensisheim, in Elsass. A 

 document which is still preserved in the church shows that it fell in 1492, and it was accompanied 

 by a prolonged noise as of a crash of thunder. It was seen by a child to strike the ground, where 

 it made a hole more than five feet deep. It is now kept in the Rathhaus. It weighed no less 

 than two hundred and sixty 

 pounds. 



Another of the most 

 famous falls is what is known 

 as the Pallas-iron. Of this a 

 piece weighing about seven 

 pounds is preserved in our 

 national collection at the 

 Natural Historj- JIuseum. 

 But the whole mass weighed 

 as much as fifteen hundred 

 pounds, and the greater part 

 is now to be seen in the St. 

 Petersburg Jluseum. This 

 had been seen by a Cossack, 

 at Mount Kemirs, in Siberia, 

 as early as 1749, and was 

 recognized by Pallas in 1772. 

 We are told that it was re- 

 garded by the Tartars as a 

 holy thing fallen from heaven. 

 It has a very irregular sur- 

 face, with large sponge-like 

 pores in which olivine is 

 found. 



Many meteorites have a 

 very smooth and almost 

 polished exterior, and of 

 these two massive specimens 

 are to be seen at South Ken- 

 sington. One, which comes 

 from the Canon Diablo, 

 Arizona, weighs about two 

 hundred pounds, and it is 

 remarkable that many other 

 meteorites have come from 



the same neighbourhood, and the cranbourxe mei eorh e 



in some cases they have con- ^^'" '" » »'^"' "mong Meteorites, ana 



, rusting of its surface is remarkable, whicfi i 



tained mmute diamonds. The the atmosphere. 



weighs three and a half tons. The 

 caused by corrosion from exposure to 



