(See note to page 115.) Compare Valckenaer,
'Diatribe in Eurip. perd. Dram. Reliquias', 1767, p. 30. Diog. Laert., ii.,
40. Hence, among the Greek philosophers, we find four hypotheses regarding
the origin of falling stars: a telluric origin from ascending exhalations;
masses of stone raised by hurricane (see Aristot., 'Meteor., lib. i., cap.
iv., 2-13, and cap. vii., 9); a solar origin; and, lastly, an origin in the
regions of space, as heavenly bodies which had long remained invisible.
Respecting this last opinion, which is that of Diogenes of Apollonia, and
entirely accords with that of the present day, see pages 124 and 125. It is
worthy of remark, that in Syria, as I have been assured by a learned
Orientalist, now resident at Smyrna, Andrea de Nericat, who instructed me in
Persian, there is a popular belief that a?‘rolites chiefly fall on clear
moonlight nights. The ancients, on the contrary, especially looked for
their fall during lunar eclipses. (See Pliny, xxxvii., 10, p. 164.
Solinus, c. 37. Salm., 'Exere.', p. 531; and the passages collected by
Ukert, in his 'Geogr. der Griechen und R??mer', th. ii., 1, s. 131, note
14.) On the improbability that meteoric masses are formed from
metal-dissolving gases, which, according to Fusinieri, may exist in the
highest strata of our atmosphere, and previously diffused through an almost
boundless space, may suddenly assume a solid condition, and on the
penetration and misceability of gases, see my '
Relat.
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