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ON METEORITES, OR CELESTIAL STONES 79
stone of this type, and was hence regarded as sheltering a divinity.
One
of the very earliest references to meteorites appears in the Book of
Joshua (chap, x, verse 11), where we read, in the account of the battle
fought by the Israelites against the Amorites and their allies, that
"the Lord cast down great stones from heaven" upon the Amorites, so
that more of the latter were killed by these stones than by the weapons
of the Israelites. Admitting the historical character of the account,
this fall of meteorites probably took place in the twelfth century b.c. In an Assyrian cuneiform inscription, there is mention of the seven black stoned of the city of Urka in Chaldea, These were hœtyli and were regarded as representations οf the seven planets.12
The fall of meteors is noted frequently in Chinese records, the first instance dating from 644 b.c. Of a meteor that fell in 213 b.c., we are told that it descended as ' ' a star which turned to a stone as it fell."13 A meteorite that fell in China in 211 b.c. is
said to have been the indirect cause of many deaths. The event took
place during the reign of the tyrannical emperor Chi Hoang-ti, who had
incurred the resentment of all the Chinese litterati by his wholesale
burning of books. Some believer in the power of sorcery caused an
inscription to be cut on this stone predicting the death of the hated
emperor within a year, and when news of the fact came to the monarch's
ears he gave orders to have the stone split up, and to put to death all
the inhabitants of the place where it was found, this being no doubt
looked upon as a most effective conjuration of the spell.14
In 405 b.c., Lysander won his great victory over the
"Lenormant, " Lettres Assyriologiques," Paris, 1872, vol. ii, p. 118.
"Miere, " Fall of Meteorites in Ancient and Modern Times," Science Progni«, vol. vii, No. 8, July, 1898, p. 349.
ME. F. F. Chladni, " Verzeichniss der herabgefallenen Stein- und Eisen-msssen," p. 5; Gilbert's Annalen der Physik, vol. L
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