242 
STONES FALLING FROM THE AIR. 
Their mode of After having described the circumstances which accompany 
the fail of aerolites, the authors of the theory we are speaking of 
proceed to their origin. Of the twenty-nine stones that have 
fallen during calm weather, twenty of these aerolites have 
appeared to come out s of a cloud of small extent, but of a 
rounded figure, and a black or variable colour, according to the 
colour of the stones themselves ; for instance, its colour was 
white in the fall which was observed at Burgos, and the stones 
which came out of the cloud were white. 
A mist or A mist or cloud seems to be always essential to these meteors, 
cloud is essen- 
tial to the fall from which proceeds the noise which accompanies or precedes 
of stones from t ^ e p a jj Q f afero |ft es and from which the stones themselves are 
the air. 
emitted. The extent of these meteors is usually not less than 
from a half league, to a league in diameter, a size very different 
from that of the stones themselves, of which the mass is very 
frequently of small dimensions. This difference cannot be 
explained by admitting that the vapours give this extent to the 
meteor ; for then the meteor would be composed of the metallic 
globe, and the vapours it carries after it, whereas the form of 
the metallic globe is always more or less round and circum- 
scribed. It must then be supposed, that the greatest part of 
these globes is not composed of metallic particles alone, whilst 
they are passing through the air, but of inflammable particles, 
which are consumed during their rapid course. 
The luminous This a PP ears st ^ farther proved by the luminous phenomena 
globes are not which accompany these meteors, for they are not the same as 
ed^lut'fike- those produced by ignited metallic bodies. The colour of the 
wise in a state flame is in fact white, like that of camphor or of phosphorus 
of combustion, . ___ 
& c . when ignited. In the aerolites of Connecticut or Weston, which 
fell in 1807*, the light followed exactly the line of the explosions* 
was extinguished with each explosion, and re-appeared with the 
succeeding one. If, as some philosophers have pretended, the 
light was the consequence of the ignited state of the aerolite, 
occasioned by its rapid fall, it would follow necessarily, that this 
state of incandescence should increase with the time of the 
* Journal de Physique de M. Lam£therie, May 1808. 
fall 5 
