A general tradition has prevailed in almost all ages, and amongst all people, of the fall of solid bodies from the atmosphere, under various denominations, but, with us, more particularly, under that of _thunderbolts_. In barbarous and uncivilized countries, these have usually been ascribed to the miraculous judgment of the deity; and they may be considered as the true origin of the worship of stones. The image of Diana, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, as believed by the Ephesians to have fallen down from Jupiter, and the Palladium or sacred statue of Minerva, which also is said to have fallen from Heaven, and to have been preserved in Troy, as a treasure, on the safety of which that of the city depended, had each, no doubt, this origin. The Psalmist evidently alludes to the falling of meteoric stones, when, speaking of the Almighty, he says, “He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him with dark water, and thick clouds to cover him. At the brightness of his presence his clouds removed; hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered out of Heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder; hailstones and coals of fire.” Among numerous other instances of these stones, it is recorded that, on the seventh of November, 1492, betwixt eleven and twelve o’clock at noon, a dreadful clap of thunder was heard at Ensisheim, a considerable town in Alsace, and that a huge stone was seen to fall on a field lately sown with wheat. On several of the neighbours going to the place, the hole it had formed was found to be about three feet in depth, and the stone when dug out, weighed two hundred and sixty pounds. It was preserved in the cathedral of Ensisheim until the beginning of the French Revolution, when it was conveyed to the public library at Colmar. There are in the British Museum two small pieces of this stone, and fragments of several other meteoric stones which have fallen in different parts of the world. Two stones fell near Verona in Italy, in the year 1672, one of which weighed three hundred, and the other two hundred pounds.