Viewing the facts as they exist, the earth, a seeming fugitive mass flying through space, vainly endeavoring to break the bonds which bind it to the sun, hunted, bombarded with strange missiles hurled from unseen hands or forces from the infinity of space, it is little wonder that the ancients and some savage races of later times invested the phenomena with strange meanings. It requires but little imagination to see in the flying earth a living monster followed by shadowy furies which hurl themselves upon it, now vainly attempting to reach the air-protected body or again striking it with terrific force, lodging deep in its sides amid loud reverberation and dazzling blaze of light. Meteorites have been known from the very earliest times, and have often been regarded as miraculous creatures to be worshiped and handed down from family to family. The famous meteorite which fell in Phrygia, centuries ago, was worshiped as Cybele, "the mother of the gods," and about the year 204 B.C. was carried to Rome with much display and ceremony, when people of all classes fell down before it, deeming it a messenger from the gods. Diana of Ephesus and the famous Cyprian Venus were, in all probability, meteoric stones which were seen to fall, and were worshiped for the same reason as above. Livy describes a shower of meteorites which fell about the Alban Mount 652 B.C. The senate was demoralized, and certain prophets announced it a warning from heaven, so impressing the lawmakers that they declared a nine-days' festival with which to propitiate the gods. The visitor to Mecca will find enshrined in a place of honor a meteorite which can be traced back beyond 600 A.D., and which is worshiped by pilgrims. The Tartars pointed out a meteorite to Pallas, in 1772, which had fallen at Krasnojarsk, and which they considered a holy messenger from heaven. A large body of meteoric iron found in Wichita County, Texas, was regarded by the Indians as a fetich. They told strangers that it came from the sky as a messenger from the Great Spirit. This meteorite was stationed at a point where two Indian trails met, and was observed and worshiped as a shrine. The Chinese have records of meteors which fell 644 B.C. The oldest authentic fall in which the stone is preserved is that of Ensisheim, Elsass, Germany, in 1492. The stone, which weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, fell with a loud roar, much to the dismay of the peasantry, penetrating the ground to a depth of five feet. It was secured by King Maximilian, who, after presenting the Duke Sigismund with a section, hung the remainder in the parish church as a holy relic, where, it is said, it may still be seen.