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 proportionate to its charities on earth, and when its allotted period is over, it falls to earth as a meteorite. If picked up soon after it falls, a meteoric stone is found to be very hot on the outside while the inside is cold. One constant characteristic by which it may be identified is the fused, black, thin and glossy crust, somewhat like varnish, which coats the surface of the meteoric stone. This surface crust is thin and sharply defined from the inner mass. The predominating element in one class of meteorites is iron, generally combined with a small amount of nickel. Copper, tin, cobalt and other substances are also found, but never silver or gold. Stony meteorites are, however, more common than iron meteorites. The velocity of meteors, or shooting stars, varies from 12 to 40 miles a second. Herschel estimates their average height above the earth at the time of their appearance as 73 miles, and 52 miles at the time of their disappearance. CHAPTER XIII VENUS AND JUPITER THE BRIGHT PLANET OF VENUS, THE GODDESS OF LOVE _Diameter--7,700 miles_