Men seem to have always taken an interest in meteorites, but not until
the early nineteenth century were these objects considered to be worth
preserving for _scientific_ study.
In the beginning, people believed that because meteorites fell from the
heavens, they were either gods themselves or messengers from the gods.
The more civilized of early men therefore carefully kept the fallen
meteorites. They draped them in costly linens and anointed them with
oil. In many instances, the people built special temples in which
meteorites were actually worshipped. Some of the holy stones of the
ancients, such as the Diana of the Ephesians, mentioned in the Bible as
“the image which fell down from Jupiter,”[9] are now thought to have
been meteorites.
Meteorite worship was common long ago in the Mediterranean area and in
Africa, India, Japan, and Mexico. This practice still persists in some
regions even in modern times. The Black Stone of the Kaaba, for example,
has been sacred to all Mohammedans from about 700 A.D. right up to the
present. It is said to be a meteorite although this fact has never been
verified, because strict religious taboos connected with the stone
prevent any scientific examination or study of it. On the contrary, the
Andhâra, India, meteorite is known to be a genuine one. The story of the
fall and preservation of this meteorite provides a fairly modern example
of practices rooted in the ritual and custom of far more ancient times.
At about 4:00 in the afternoon of December 2, 1880, the people of
Andhâra heard a noise like that made by a gun. Some of the villagers saw
a “dark ball” come to earth in a field near them. This falling object
sent up a small cloud of dust as it struck the ground. After the stone
had been recovered from the field and the dust had been washed from its
surface, two Brahmin priests took charge of it and began to collect
money for the erection of a temple in which the holy object could be
properly displayed.
The scientist who promptly investigated the Andhâra fall reported that
throngs of worshippers were crowding into the as yet unfinished brick
temple to make offerings of flowers, sweetmeats, milk, rice, water, bel
leaves, and of course money. The stone had been named Adbhuta-Nâth, “the
miraculous god.” It was shaped like a round loaf of blackish bread and
weighed an estimated 6 pounds. The scientist was not allowed to touch
it, but he got close enough to verify that the stone was a meteorite
covered with a typical blackish fusion crust.
Not only has man worshipped meteorites, but during a period extending
from approximately 300 B.C. to 300 A.D., emperors and self-governing
cities frequently marked the fall of meteorites by minting special coins
or medals known as _betyls_.[10] One of these is the betyl of Emisa,
Syria, made by Antonius Pius (138-161 A.D.). The historian, Herodotus,
accurately described the object honored by this betyl as: “A large
stone, which on the lower side is round, and above runs gradually to a
point. It has nearly the form of a cone, and is of a black color.
_People say of it in earnest that it fell from Heaven._” The stone is
shown on the coin as carried on a quadriga (a carriage drawn by four
horses) under a canopy of four sunshades.
[Illustration: COURTESY OF AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Drawing of multiple fireball, over Athens, October 18, 1863. J. F.
J. Schmidt, the celebrated pioneer fireball observer, described it
as a mass of dazzling light “bringing into view land and sea, with
the Acropolis and the Parthenon a mile away across the city.”]
Many ancient peoples held meteorites in great reverence, particularly if
they were seen to fall. But at the same time, other more
practical-minded individuals made good use of the durable and easily
worked alloy provided by nature in the nickel-iron meteorites. This
alloy was frequently used to make ax-heads, spear and harpoon points,
knives, farming tools, stirrups and spurs, and even pots and other
utensils. Archeologists have found earrings and similar ornaments
overlaid with thin sheets of hammered meteoritic iron in Indian mounds
of the Ohio Valley. They have also discovered round beads made of
nickel-iron in Indian mounds of the Havana, Illinois, area and in the
still more ancient Egyptian ruins at Gerzah.
Meteoritic iron has often been used in the manufacture of special
swords, daggers, and knives for members of the royalty. Atilla and other
early conquerors of Europe boasted of “swords from heaven.” Emperor
Jehangir (1605-1627) ordered two sword blades, a knife, and a dagger to
be smelted from the Jalandhar, India, meteorite, which fell on April 10,
1621. In the early nineteenth century, a sword was manufactured from a
portion of the Cape of Good Hope meteorite for presentation to
Alexander, the Emperor of Russia. Even as late as the end of the
nineteenth century, several swords were made from a part of the
Shirihagi, Japan, iron meteorite at the command of a member of the
Japanese court.
[Illustration: A Russian artist’s pen-and-ink drawing of an
extremely brilliant detonating fire ball or bolide. See page 102.]
In the Europe of the Middle Ages, meteorite falls and meteor showers, as
well as other “unnatural” events like comets, eclipses, and displays of
the aurora borealis, were regarded with superstitious awe by commoner
and king alike. The medieval mind always sought to interpret events
connected in any way with the heavens as somehow influencing the affairs
of men. A bishop explained that the great meteor shower of April 4,
1095, forecast “the changes and wanderings of nations from kingdom to
kingdom.” The fact, however, that the First Crusade began within a year,
is mere coincidence.
In referring to celestial events, Shakespeare often expressed the view
that was common in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. An example is:
The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change,
. . . . . .
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
(_Richard II_, II, iv, 8-11, 15)
Yet the descent of meteorites from the heavens was not always regarded
as a forewarning of bad fortune. On November 16, 1492, a 279-pound
meteorite fell at Ensisheim in Alsace, not far from the battle line
separating the armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor
Maximilian, the leader of the Empire’s forces, commanded that the fallen
stone be carried to his castle. There a formal war-council was held to
determine what the strange event could mean.
[Illustration: COURTESY OF AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Drawing of Andromedid meteor shower, November 27, 1872.]
The Emperor and his councillors decided that the fall of the meteorite
at such a time and place was an omen of divine favor which meant good
fortune to the cause of the Holy Roman Empire. After breaking off two
small pieces of the stone, one for the Duke of Austria and one for
himself, the Emperor forbade further damage to it. He also gave orders
that the stone be hung in the parish church in Ensisheim for all to see.
In this way, the Ensisheim stone became the very first meteorite of
witnessed fall to be preserved down to the present day—and all because
of the superstition of a famous military leader.
The discussion to this point makes clear that in ancient, medieval, and
Renaissance times, meteorite falls were considered as startling and
disturbing events, which frequently were interpreted in strange and
mistaken ways. But the fact that meteorites actually did fall from the
heavens was not questioned. As the so-called “Age of Reason” opened, a
curious change in attitude toward meteorite falls took place.
At the very time that knowledge in general increased, men of learning
began to deny that meteorite falls occurred at all! The scientists of
the French Academy, in particular, were very positive on this point.
Since the era was one in which all Europe sneezed if “la belle France”
had a cold in the head, it was a trying time not only for the early
meteoriticists, but for all who had the nerve to insist they had seen
rocks fall from the sky.
By the end of the 1700’s, the authorities had studied the evidence
relating to meteorite falls and had completely rejected it. They said
that there was no “proof” whatever that “stones fell from the heavens.”
These early scientists openly sneered at people who claimed that they
had seen meteorites fall. It was felt that the spectators of such events
either had merely been “seeing things,” or had surely been reporting
light and sound effects connected with nothing but ordinary
thunderstorms.
When confronted with the “fallen” masses themselves, the authorities
often refused to examine them, or if they did, insisted that these
masses were only rocks that had been struck by lightning. Such were the
opinions of learned men around the close of the eighteenth century.
Fortunately, scientific facts have a stubborn way of winning out in the
long run. A major part of the credit for seeing that the truth regarding
meteorite falls was at last recognized must go to E. F. F. Chladni, a
German physicist, and to Edward Howard, an English chemist.
In 1794, Chladni published an extremely important paper concerning a
large spongelike mass of “native iron” found near Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
This object had been discovered in 1749 by a Russian blacksmith, and it
was studied in 1772 by P. S. Pallas, an early traveler. Chladni
concluded that the mass of iron[11] must have fallen from the heavens,
because it had been “fused” (but not by man, electricity, or fire) and
also because there were no volcanoes anywhere around its place of find.
Chladni supported his theory by listing numerous reports of meteorite
falls dating from ancient and medieval times. But Chladni’s fellow
scientists flatly rejected his theory as clever but not satisfactory.
With the fall of the Siena meteorites in Italy on June 16, 1794, the
controversy regarding the possibility that stones actually fell from the
sky became particularly heated, and remained so for nearly ten years.
During this interval, two other important meteorite falls occurred: Wold
Cottage, England, on December 13, 1795, and Benares, India, on December
19, 1798. Scientists had a hard time finding explanations for these
well-observed events, and some of the theories put forward to account
for them far outdid Chladni’s in “cleverness,” if that be the correct
word.
One scholar, writing in 1796, suggested that the masses which fell at
Siena resulted from the solidification at great height of volcanic ashes
from Mount Vesuvius. These ashes had supposedly been carried northward
beyond Siena and then been “brought back by a northerly wind, congealing
from the air....”
Fortunately, in 1803 Edward Howard’s chemical work on meteorites came to
a successful conclusion. This patient chemist made analyses of samples
from the Siena, Wold Cottage, and Benares falls and from an older
Bohemian fall. He also had the samples studied mineralogically by a
fellow scientist. From the results of these investigations, he drew the
following conclusions, which admirably supported Chladni’s well-reasoned
and thoroughly documented theory regarding meteorite falls:
All four of the stones studied had very nearly the same composition.
Despite the fact that the stones contained no new elements, their
mineralogical character differed in several important respects from
that of any rocks found naturally on the earth.
The four masses must have had a common origin although their reported
falls had been widely separated both in time and in space.
Finally, said Howard, it was quite possible that the stones had really
fallen from the sky.
Howard’s views were soon put to the test. Shortly after the publication
of his important paper, a shower of stony meteorites fell near L’Aigle,
France, on April 26, 1803. This event was carefully investigated by
French scientists, and they reluctantly admitted that about 3,000 stones
actually had fallen within an oval-shaped area about 6 miles long by 2
miles wide. This shower of meteorites had been accompanied by the same
light and sound effects mentioned in many of the old meteorite-fall
reports collected by Chladni, effects now recognized as characteristic
of the infall of meteorites upon the earth. The evidence was
overwhelming—stones really did fall from the sky. In the camp of the
enemy, so to speak, the reality of meteorite falls was established once
and for all!