heavy rock. Thunders and visible explosions sometimes are heard as an accompaniment of the falling meteor. The meteors which fall to the ground are called "meteorites," or "aerolites," a literal translation of the latter term being "airstone." On an average, however, the individual bodies of a meteor swarm are very small, being represented by "a cloud of silver dimes each about 250 miles from its nearest neighbor." The smaller and lighter meteors called shooting stars which are consumed in our atmosphere probably number from 10 to 20 million daily.
Occasionally a meteorite found is very large, a few weighing several tons, but this is most unusual. The one brought by Commander Peary from Greenland is 11 feet long and 5 feet wide and weighs 36 tons. This is now on display in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. At Ensisheim, in Alsace, during the 15th century, a stone weighing 260 pounds which had descended from the sky was ordered by Emperor Maximilian to be suspended in the church where it hung for 300 years. A shower of nearly 3000 stones of various sizes occurred in Normandy within an elliptical area seven miles long and three miles wide. Nearly all the inhabitants of a large district saw the cloud and witnessed the rain of the stones.
The Greeks and Romans thought that casting stones upon the earth was some sort of pastime indulged in by the Gods and the Romans incorporated in a temple a shower of stones which fell on Alban Mount near Rome. A stone from Heaven was also reverenced in the masonry of the great Mosque of Mecca where it is annually kissed by thousands of pilgrims who begin holy rites by walking seven times around the Kaaba starting from the corner where the black stone is fixed. The great stone in the pyramid of Cholula, in Mexico, and a black stone at Emesa, in Syria, have also been regarded with religious veneration. In India, the residence of a soul in heaven is believed to be propor-
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