quently tumble off and are caught in small glazed pots, that
are purposely placed underneath to receive and prevent them
from doing further mischief. This contrivance, however, must
be too expensive to be general.
We had scarcely descended the heights and reached the
village of Santa Cruz, which is situated on the eastern point
of the island, before it became dark; and we had still ten
miles to travel, along the edges of rocky precipices overhanging
the sea-shore, where we had little to trust to beyond the
cautious steps of the mules. In this part of the journey, one
of the most brilliant and beautiful meteors I ever beheld
passed over our heads, from the body of the island, with a
rustling noise like that of a sky-rocket, appearing to fall in a
curvilinear direction into the sea. The duration of its light
we conjectured to be from eight to ten seconds. The first
impression, made by a light so exceedingly brilliant, suggested
the idea of a fresh eruption from the volcanic mountains
we had just descended, and all eyes were turned towards
that quarter. Our troublesome journey, as I observe by my
notes, was much shortened in philosophizing on this phenomenon.
On the principles of the old-fashioned doctrine which
then (now thirteen years ago) prevailed, it was- concluded
that the electric fluid, passing through contiguous or blended
volumes of oxygen and hydrogen gasses floating in the upper
regions of the atmosphere, might effect that chemical combination
which is known to produce water; and that, notwithstanding
the clear starry hemisphere, we might be caught
in rain before we reached Funchal. This did not exactly
happen, but several smart showers fell in the course of the
night. The signs and prognostics of the weather become
more than usually interesting to him who has to travel over
.desert wastes, w h e r e he has no expectation of meeting with
even a hovel to hide him from the storm. Such having been my
case since the period on which I am now writing, it may readily
be supposed I was not wholly inattentive to these circumstances
; and I can safely say that, as far as my observations
go, either a clouded atmosphere or rain has invariably sue- ,
needed the appearance of fiery meteors, or, as they are sometimes
called, falling stars. Perhaps, indeed, the same effect of
c o m b i n i n g the airs might take place, whether these meteors be
considered as mere electric sparks, or heated masses of stone
formed under circumstances and ejected from situations equally
un k n own. The modern conjecture, that the latter might be
hurled from lunar volcanoes, seems to be the most plausible,
as, under favourable positions of the sun and moon, calculators
have assured us, that the force required to send a stone from
the latter planet within the attractive sphere of the former
would be little more than three times that of a cannon ball.
Thus the various accounts we meet with, in ancient history,
o f stones descending from the heavens, and supposed to have
been ejected from the sun or the moon, are not quite so fabulous
as they were long held to be. Even modern philosophers disbelieved
the fact, and ridiculed the hypothesis; but they
have at length condescended to concede that the ancients
might be correct as to the fact, and possibly not wrong in
their conclusions. Pliny, who in his natural history has
given us a compilation of every thing he had read, heard, or
seen, records an instance, among others of a similar kind,
B