407 
AEROLITES. 
BY TOWNSHEND M. HALL, F.G.S. 
M ETEORIC stones, or aerolites, as they are generally 
called (from two Greek words, aer and lithos , signifying 
“air stones”), may be defined as solid masses consisting prin- 
cipally of pure iron, nickel, and several other metals, sometimes 
containing also an admixture of augite, olivine, and hornblende, 
which, from time to time, at irregular intervals, have fallen 
upon the surface of the earth from above. 
Other designations, such as “ fire-balls and thunder-bolts,” 
have been popularly applied to these celestial masses, the former 
denoting their usual fiery appearance, whilst the latter has 
reference to the extreme suddenness of their descent. 
Shooting stars also, although they are not accompanied by 
the fall of any solid matter upon the earth, are generally 
placed in this same category, since they are supposed to be 
aerolites which pass (comparatively speaking) very near our 
earth, and are visible from it by night ; at the same time their 
distance from us, varying as it does from 4 to 240 miles 
and upwards, is in most instances too great to allow of their 
being drawn down by the attractive power possessed by the 
earth. Like comets and eclipses, these celestial phenomena 
in former times were universally regarded with feelings of 
the greatest awe and superstition ; and in Eastern countries 
especially, where the fall of a meteoric stone was supposed to 
be the immediate precursor of some important public event, 
or national calamity, the precise date of each descent was 
carefully recorded. In China, for example, such reports reach 
back to the year 644 before our era ; and M. Biot has found 
in the astronomical section of some of the most ancient annals 
of that empire sixteen falls of aerolites, recorded as having 
taken place between the years 644 b.c. and 333 after Christ, 
whilst the Greek and Roman authors mention only four such 
occurrences during the same period. Even now, in this age 
of science and universal knowledge, aerolites can scarcely be 
regarded without a certain degree of dread. Indeed, four or 
five cases have occurred in which persons have been killed 
by them ; in another instance, several villages in India were 
