METEORIC STONES. 195 
been ascribed to the miraculous judgment of the deity; 
and they may be considered as the true origin of the 
worship of stones. The image of Diana,, mentioned in 
the Acts of the Apostles, as believed by the Ephesians 
to have fallen down from Jupiter, and the Palladium or 
sacred statue of Minerva, which also is said to have 
fallen from Heaven, and to have been preserved in 
Troy, as a treasure, on the safety of which that of the 
city depended, had each, no doubt, this origin. The 
Psalmist evidently alludes to the falling of meteoric 
stones, when, speaking, of the Almighty, he says, ' He 
made darkness his secret place : his pavilion round 
about him with dark water, and thick clouds to cover 
him. At the brightness of his presence his clouds re- 
moved ; hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also 
thundered out of Heaven, and the Highest gave his 
thunder ; hailstones and coals of fire." 
Among numerous other instances of these stones, it 
is recorded that, on the seventh of November, 1492, be- 
twixt eleven and twelve o'clock at noon, a dreadful 
clap of thunder was heard at Ensisheim, a considerable 
town in Alsace, and that a huge stone was seen to fall 
on a field lately sown with wheat. On several of the 
neighbours going to the place, the hole it had formed was 
found to be about three feet in depth, and the stone when 
dug out, weighed two hundred and sixty pounds. It 
was preserved in the cathedral of Ensisheim until the 
beginning of the French Revolution, when it was con- 
veyed to the public library at Colniar. There are in 
the British Museum two small pieces of this stone, and 
fragments of several other meteoric stones which have 
fallen in different parts of the world. 
Two stones fell near Verona in Italy, in the year 
1672, one of which weighed three hundred, and the 
other two hundred pounds. 
Mr. Sowerby, the publisher of English Botany, and 
of several other highly estimable works, possessed a me- 
teoric stone which fell near Wold Newton in Yorkshire, 
in the afternoon of the thirteenth of December, 17-95, 
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