Now, allowing this to be the case, and the evidence adduced in this paper strengthens the idea, we need not, 1 think, go beyond the earth for a solution of the enigma.

The whole mass of testimony, without an exception, involves the notion of intense heat, and the developement of electric force.

We have seen, in what has gone before, that meteors and meteorites must have a similar origin ; that they are con- nected with electric phenomena ; that they produce or are followed by electrical changes in the atmosphere ; that snow, rain, hail, lightning, the aurora boreal is, shooting stars, and aerolites are frequently contemporaneous and connected with each other, and with earthquakes and volcanic emanations and explosions; that, about the time when the earth is in particular excitement from the latter phenomena, the former are more numerous and most intense ; and that very fre- quently direct evidence has been afforded of a volcanic origin.

Analysis has proved that there is no substance in meteorites not found in the earth, except in one or two particular cases, as in that of Sterlitamanck and Kirianova ; that nickel, long supposed to be a meteoric metal, is found in mineral masses of terrestrial origin ; and that there are frequently traces of many other facts seem to prove that iron exists in the air and in clouds, and it is well known that the same metal mixed with manganese, nitrous salts, and organic substances, is found in rain water.

Fusinieri is of opinion, that the iron has been drawn from the earth, and chiefly from mountains, where the mines are most frequented, and where storms com- monly begin to form.