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ignorance is the best wisdom, and where science will be better 
served by a close and honest observation of phenomena than 
by faulty, ill- digested theories. In conclusion, I would re- 
mark that, for aught we know to the contrary, falling stars 
may be an electrical phenomenon, somewhat like, but differing 
in intensity from, the aurora borealis. They both seem to 
appear in the upper regions of our atmosphere ; both seem to 
radiate from fixed points ; both can be imitated artificially by 
the passage of electricity through rarefied gas or air ; both 
have many points of resemblance. Moreover, both pheno- 
mena seem to be connected. Aurora has been seen more than 
once to accompany the display of falling stars. It has also 
been noticed that the passage of a falling star through the sky 
has lit up, as it were, a flash of aurora, where it had not pre- 
viously been seen ; showing, at least, some connection between 
the phenomena. 
Again : there are electrical displays, such as the fires of 
Elmo, and globular lightning, and fire-balls slowly advancing 
on the sea, and bursting as an electric shock on a vessel, which 
would seem to show that some of the fiery meteors at least 
might be referred to an electric origin. 
With regard to the origin of meteorites, the first English 
theory of their terrestrial origin has not lost all supporters. 
They are identical in chemical and, in some measure, even in 
mechanical structure, with our own volcanic rocks. 
The phenomena which so persistently accompany the fall of 
meteoric stones by no means accord with their supposed 
passage through the atmosphere with planetary velocity. 
They fall to the earth with no greater velocity than they would 
attain by falling from the clouds they are seen to be projected 
from. Tons upon tons of dust, rich in the shells of foramini- 
fera of South America, are carried into the atmosphere by 
tornadoes. This dust rises above the trade winds, descends 
after a flight of thousands of miles, and covers areas of many 
square miles of the ocean in the Atlantic or Mediterranean. If 
wind can thus carry dust and sand, who can tell what vapours 
of metals and other materials may be projected from our 
volcanoes ? Some electrical condition of the atmosphere may 
condense these vapours, just as masses of ice are formed in 
mid-air by the same agency. The same crackling, rumbling 
sound which presages the formation of masses of ice in the 
atmosphere is a never-failing accompaniment to the mysterious 
cloud which projects its stony mass to the earth. Electricity 
can reduce metals from their combinations, as well as resolve 
them into vapour. At any rate, this theory is not wilder than 
many others which have been framed about meteors. It is not 
