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Section II,, 18!)(). 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 * 
 
 
 / 
 
 Trans. 
 
 E. 
 
 S.C. 
 
 [69] 
 
 IV. — Acroliti's anil Rdhjion. 
 
 Hy Arthur TIarvev. 
 
 (Read May 18, 1895.) 
 
 Fev7 natural i)henoinona are more terrify inn; than tho fall of an 
 aerolite, A ball of tiro, often said to be ''as bii,' as tho moon," suddenly 
 appears, moving with marvellous swiftness. A noise, as of cannon, fol- 
 lowed by tho rattle of musketry, stuns the ears. Porhajis a cloud is 
 formed, emittinir u shower rf stones. Sometimes there is a second loud 
 report, a continuous rumbling that lasts for minutes, a hissing ^ound. and 
 thousands of missiles bombard an area several miles across. Or tiiore 
 may be a whizz from a body enveloped in smoke, leaving a trail of tiro. 
 The fireball may emit jets of tlame and disappi-ar with a noise as of dis- 
 tant thunder, or it may actually fall in the sight of the ob.server. it may 
 rusli at the rate of twenty miles a second over a thousand miles of earth 
 and sea, at a height of a hundred [miles or so, dropping a fragment here 
 and another there, or it may come vertically down. If it buries itself in 
 the soil, it may penetrate several feet. If it falls in the ocean, it is, of 
 course, for ever lost. But it may strike a rock with but a scanty cover- 
 ing, or ice or snow, or hard packed sand, or trees and even buildings. 
 Then it is usually found to be hot, and of a shajje, colour and material 
 utterly unlike the stones of earth. 
 
 It would be surprising if in the earlier ages of the workl men had 
 not seen in the meteorite not merely a message from the gotls but a mes- 
 senger, a very god himself. All natural religion begins with fear, though 
 it may end with love, and in the study of the history of religions it may be 
 that the sun and his powers have received too exclusive attention. Zeus 
 has certainly been ethnically, etymological ly, astronomically suj)reme ; 
 yet the thunderstorm, with its attendant terrors, or the rarer and still 
 more dreadful meteorite, must have received the earliest notice of prim- 
 itive man, whether on the prairies of America, the stejjpes of Eussia^ the 
 dry littoral of the Mediterranean, or the sandy ])lains of Arabia. There 
 are, indeed, many traces of a vei-y early and very widely spreail cult of 
 the aerolite, especially among the races of nomadic habits, and to su'>\e 
 of these this paper is intended to refer. 
 
 In tho Gi'oek fable, CJhronos used to devour his children {Tempus 
 eda.v rerimi), but, one day. they saved Zeus by giving his father a stone to 
 crunch, instead. The stone itself, Pausanias sa,ys, was shown at Delphi, 
 near the tomb of Neoi)tolemos, in the precincts sacred to Apollo. This 
 was probably an aerolite. The image of Diana at Ephesus referred t(t.bj: 
 
 1^1 
 
 National Library 
 ol Canada 
 
 Biblioth^ue nalionale 
 du Canada 
 
 CLAaOIPICATIOS 
 
 ('^^, ;, \> N- ^ 
 
1i 
 
 noi 
 
 , 3 
 
 70 
 
 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
 
 Euni.i,l,.s iuid in tl... Acts is described us ii luist. with iniiny breasts 
 tiiiMTmi,^ to a pedestal, the whole of black stone. It fell from heaven' 
 and part of it may have been an aerolite, or it may have been nuuie t<) 
 re],lace the ori-inal aerolithic deity. The club of Ilercnies, wor.shii.pcd 
 111 1 brace, ^^a^ probably a Tlior's hammer, the Thracians being of North- 
 ern km, and an aerolite. Like the images or .symbols of Apollo the 
 guar<lian of the ways, and of the Paphian Venus, it was said to 'have 
 fallen from above. These uncertain instances are adduced first because 
 the opportunity is atforded thereby to prove that it is not important as a 
 matter of religion to discriminate between a real and an ima.nn'iry 
 aerolite. A gentleman still living in Toronto having purchased' t"i.mi a 
 farmer near A^iagara a nodule containing quartz crystals, read a pai)er 
 to a learned society, in which he explained its .structure as bein-^ tint of 
 a planetoid, rounded, flatted at the poles, and he argued that tht^'intcrior 
 ot our globe might be crystalline too. There is little .l.mbt that the farmer 
 saw a meteorite fall, and. j.icking u]) this geode. believed it to be the 
 aerolite. Again, one of the secretaries of the Astronomical Societv of 
 Toronto, whose family thought they saw a meteorite fall into a snow-bank 
 delved into the drift and brought up a water-worn pebble of .-neiss' 
 which a less experienci'd per.son might have sw<»rn to be an aerolite So 
 M'lth the objects of the ancients- veneration, it could make little <lifference 
 whether they were really meteorites or not, [.rovided they were believed to 
 have fallen from the skies. 
 
 To ascertain the probable views of the folks of the early a<res in 
 Lurope, we must now see how the untutored races of the preseiu day 
 regard the aerolite. "^ 
 
 J'rofessor (Jarner, the well-known student of the speech of monkeys 
 who says the negroes of the (luinea Coast do not believe in a beneficent 
 god, but rather in a being who does harm, tells the writer that in one 
 African village he found the chief public treasure was two stones, about 
 the size of hen's eggs. The natives said they had been shot out from the 
 sun and had killed this malevolent being . . . who had. liowever, revived 
 They thought the stones had been alive, and because they still made tire 
 when struck together they thought they were not dead yet, but were in 
 a sort of trance. So they built a house for them and guarded them with 
 care. 
 
 The Eev. II. S. Ta^-lor gives an instructive account of the fall of a 
 meteor, in the Report of the Government Central Museum of Madras 
 1890. Two aerolites travelling through sjiace together, or two iiieces 
 torn asunder by explosion, had fallen at Parmallee, Madras, India, Febru- 
 ary 28th, 1857— reaching tlie earth two miles apart. Persons were 
 standing near each place of fall. " Many," says Mr. Taylor, " worshipped 
 them." And again, " Of the excitement among the natives I need not 
 speak . . . Some of them supposed they were gods that had fallen." 
 
[a. iiarvby] 
 
 AEROLITES AND RELIGION 
 
 71 
 
 Tiio American liuliiuis Iwivo fVoin tinu'imiixonioi'ial rogiinlcd aorolitos 
 as Hiicrt'd obJcH'ts. Mail}' spt'cimens of iiK'tooric iron have lieeii found 
 near tlie -altars" in the mounds ot'Oliio. ( )ni' is an amiiiot in the shape 
 of a iar,ii;e rini^-. and anotiier, tii,nire(l and described by Mr. (i. K. Knnz. in 
 the American Journal of Science, has still in it the jioint of a coi)per 
 chi.sel, which broke otf as the aborigine was trying to split the mass. In 
 the Dacotah winter counts (rnic iJeport of the Tnited States Hureau of 
 Ethnology. 1SH2-83) there aresynd«)l> for i1h> fall of an aerolite in 1821 22, 
 and the explanation given of the two >cparatc '• counts ' is '-Large ball of 
 fire with hissing noi.se," and •• a large I'oaring star fell." The meteorite in 
 Victoria College Jluseum. of which Prof. A. F. Coleman has given an 
 analysis in the Transactions of this society, is alluded to by the Rev. 
 Geo. McLean, now of Tort Arthur, in bis • I a<lians in ( 'anada.' For long 
 ages, he tells us, the natives say it lay tlicre. and they atlrii.iited to it 
 mysterious powers, he thinUs on account of its weight (sjiccitic gravity 
 7-784). Though many had tried to lift it. all had failed, and wliJu they 
 heai-d the white men had taken it away lliey put their bands to their 
 mouths and said. '• The white man is very strong." They much i-egretted 
 its removal, and their medicine men i)Vophesied that evil would conio 
 upon the tribes and the butlalo forsake the country. The Kev. .1. Mac- 
 dougall. of .Morleyville. whose father bad it removed, tells the writer that 
 the place where it tell was named on its account I'e-wah-bisk Kali-ah-pit 
 or -'the iron, where it lay.'' Though it had been there from time im- 
 memorial, the Indians knew it had fallen from heaven. On jiassing the 
 place, or anywhere near it, they would go to the spot and leave upon it a 
 ITiecc of tobacco, a broken arrow-head, or some such otfering, for they 
 wished the spirit which had sent it to protect them, or at least not to 
 intei'fcre with them in their forays. They also thought it had grown, 
 because their forefathers coukl lift it, while they could not. 
 
 There was an aerolite at Wichita. Kansas, which in a similar way the 
 tribes there reverenced. We can after this reflect without surprise on 
 the great aerolite placed on the Aztec pyramid of Cholula or those set on 
 other .Mexican teocallis. 
 
 Mr. Keary, in his ■•Outlines of Primitive llelief," speaks of the con- 
 ical shaiied stones and the stumps which wer" conspicuous in the religions 
 of the Syrians and J'hccnicians as fetishes, and as jjcrhaps connected with 
 Phallic worship, and thus almost contemptuously dismisses the subject. 
 " Phallic worship " is a good term to conjure by. Ft serves the mytliolo- 
 gist as the glaciartheory has served the geologist, to explain eveiything 
 otherwise inexplicable, or as the term "subjective mind " now serves the 
 psychologist to unravel the knotty questions of mind-reading and second- 
 sight. Surely the above exam])le8 of the civeds of various simple peoples 
 are enough to show the real state of the belief of prehistoric men in 
 Europe and Asia, as regards these heaven-sent stones. 
 
72 
 
 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
 
 We iiin now proceed to speak of the di'volopnionl of this cult, which 
 has left Si) many traces on iiistoricai pages tliat it appears to liave had a 
 consideraijjo vogue, es]iocialiy where the Anihian inHuence jirevailed. 
 Tliat intellectual and warlike race had u wide emjiire in tiie time of the 
 i^hepherd kings of Egypt. Under the Tobhaas of the Christian era their 
 iiway extended to Cliina. while under the successors of .Afahomet they 
 ruled from India to France. Tliey were, from the earliest times, much 
 given to astrononucal studies, tlie appearance of certain stars heing the 
 signal for certain Uinds of work. FOach trii)e had a tutelary star, and tho 
 worship of the meteorite ai)pears to have been common among them. 
 There wei'e several temples in Arabia wliere such sacred stones were 
 reverenced. One, at I'etra, was dedicated to a god \v\w had the attri- 
 liutis of .Mars, an appropriate dedication, for celestial phenomena have 
 always had much influence on armies. The worshiji seems, however, to 
 have become in time encrusted with idolatry ; images were placed in the 
 temples, and a new litholatry had replaced the old form when Mahomet 
 appeared upon the scene, destroyed the figures and the temples t r)0, 
 excepting one, at Mecca. This is of especial interest here, because the 
 traveller Burton, in his " Mecca and Mediiui," says that, after an exam- 
 ination of full ten minutes, he is convinced the celebrated black stone 
 there reverenced, and ki.ssed by every pilgrim, is a meteorite. 
 
 This shrine was probably the one referred to by Diodorus (200 b. c.) 
 when he says the Bizomenians possess the inost sacred time in all Arabia, 
 and the strength of mherited religious beliefs and customs is nowhere 
 better shown than in its history. It was several times rebuilt, had fates 
 and palisadings given it that were forged from captureil wi'aiions, Avas 
 adorned with images and dowered with gold. It even endured through 
 Mahomet's iconoclastic times. He did. indeed, remove the great idol that 
 stood above the Karba, or shrine proper, and the various other images 
 and objects the Arabians had venerated there ; but his order that the 
 faithful .shoidd turn in prayer towards Jeru.salem was so obnoxious that 
 it had to be rescinded, and the black stone became and remains the cen- 
 tral ]ioint of the Mohammedan world. The Kaal)a is said to have been 
 built by Abraham, at the divine command, and to be modelled on the 
 oratory of Adam. Isaac furnished the material, and the black stone 
 served as a scaffold, being miraculously raised or lowered to suit Abra- 
 ham's convenience in building. This stone is fabled to have been as 
 white as milk, but to have become black with the sins of unbelievers. 
 Burton says it is of a reddish-brown colour, with .shining points— just 
 what a crypto-siderite after frequent rubbing might well be. 
 
 It seems difttcult to believe that the kings of the Amorites, upon 
 wliom we are told in Joshua, x. 11, that -'the Lord cast down great 
 stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died," were not 
 the victims of a shower of aerolites, especially when it is added in Judges, 
 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
[a. iiarvey] 
 
 AEROLITES AND RELIGION 
 
 78 
 
 
 V. 20, that "the stars in their courses fouglit against SiHora." Prof. 
 MeCurdy, of Toronto, is of opinion that stones from heaven moan liail. 
 and says the word " liailstones" in the latter part of the vorse is simjily 
 a plainer terra for '-stones from heaven,' and the ordinary word for hail 
 as well as for stones is employed, viz., hrtrCul. 
 
 The cult of aerolites at Rome was of Eastern origin, and we svill 
 aoeompany two of them on tlicir westward travels to that citv. 
 
 [n the year 204 B. c. aerolites fell oftener than usual. The decem- 
 vii-s therefore consulted the Syliilline hooks, and found -'that a foreign 
 " enemy landed on Italian soil could he driven otf hy hringing the Ida-an 
 "mother from Pessinus to IJomo.'" At this time Ilannihal's terrilile 
 grip was loosening, and the consuls were pi'ei)aring to carry the war 
 into Africa. Great events were in the air. The crisis of an intt>nse 
 struggle was reached. The men at the helm of .state felt tlie turning of 
 the tide ; i»ut wishing to leave nothing undone that would command 
 success, desired to fan religious fervour while levies wei-e heing raised. 
 Revivalism (n/nns rdii/io) and drill were, as in the time of Cromwell, 
 conjoined. The senate had recently made good fronds of tlie Oracle of 
 Delphi, and had i)een assured that a crowning victory was in store for 
 them, so the emliassy they sent to Attains of Phrygia, their only Asiatic 
 ally, in charge of a squadron of five line-of-hattle ships, visited Delphi 
 Pii route. The priests told the amhassadors that Attalus would grant 
 their requests, and that on ohtaining the goddess mother they we're to 
 select the best of their citizens to receive her and welcome her to Rome- 
 Attalus accordingly met the envoys with all kindness at Pergamus, his 
 capital, took them to Pessinus, and gave them a sacred stone which the 
 residents said was the mother of the gods. Sending one of tlieir nuniher 
 forward to announce success, they followed at leisure. ¥ .'.time, more 
 prodigies at home. Two suns were seen. (Parhelia, so coL.-mon here, 
 are rare in Italy,) It grew light at night-time. ((Juery— An aurora ?) 
 A holide like a tor(;h flew from east to west across the sky. Lightning 
 struck several important places, and a great crash, without apparent 
 cause, was heard in one of Juno's temples. When, finally, another 
 shower of stones occurred they had a day of general supplication and 
 nine days of religious exercises and consultations how to receive the 
 ancestral goddess. She was coming— the ves.sels were at Terracina — 
 then at Ostia, the mouth of Tiber. They chose Puhlius Cornelius Scipio. 
 (Livy will neither tell nor guess at the exact reason why he was thought 
 the worthiest of the Romans.) With him all the matrons of the city 
 streamed out to Ostia. He put out from shore to receive the goddess in 
 the roadstead, and, on returning, he delivered her to the matrons, who 
 received her with entliusiasm, and, passing her along the ladies'-chain 
 from hand to hand, in that strange way they carried her to Rome. 
 There were censers at the gates from which clouds of the smoke of spices 
 
 i 
 
74 
 
 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
 
 . porlumod tlu. air. All tl.o poopio impl..n.,l tiu. ^.o-Mms t., cm- th.. ..Kv 
 
 Ilex p atr, ,1,0 Id...an .u.„l,or in tho tempi.. ..f Vi..,..rv an.l c.nHH.cl iu-r 
 
 -h ahundan. .,„•,. We have no data c.Mni,„ .he shape, sixe, w 'i 'ht 
 
 m- ,ij<;neral app.aran,.e of thin H.one, l,„, we can infer fn,„, the al.ovo 
 
 hat U was a comparatively .small fragnu.n,, of poH.aps thirty poun.l. in 
 ^^^■.^•ht. I ,s reported, ,l,ou«.h not l.y Livy, that an inn.oi had i.een 
 .na.le m u lemale form an.l .iresn, and the stone j.laeed on it for a hea.l 
 or fao... Ihis was prohably a true aerolite. 
 
 There is no ro.mi to doubt the meteoric orii,nn of the .n-eat hl-ielv 
 «tone of Emesa, Syria, for it is described with scienli.ic precision ' l.y 
 I erod.an. i Ins was worshipped u-ith divi.ie honour by the nativ.-s ..f 
 the l.K.al.ty, while neigh bourin.i. kings and satraps sent annual pn.sents 
 of gold a.id silver and precious ston.H to adorn the great temple in which 
 It was housed. At the beginning of the third eenturv. A. D. ♦his <n,d- 
 mountain. Kl Gabal. was being served by u handsome lad of some tviur- 
 t.^en sununers. with dances and the music of cvmbals. Hutes an.l .Irums 
 the y.mng priest being arrayed in richly em br..i.lered garments of .L.th 
 ot gol.l, when tJic Jioman legionaries were by intrigues it is not now 
 protitabie to r.^ounl led to in-.,claim him imperator. Th.. stone was cone- 
 >^hape.l. probably hke an old-fashioned sugar-loaf. It stood on tlie round 
 end and tapered to a point. It had upon its surface small bumps 
 (f<*;oja,c fifjaxiia,) and indentations {T,mn„.-). Its ci'ust was black 
 OuAawa re // xp'na). There were nmrks upon it thought to indicate 
 the hgure ..f the go.l. (Query- v..n Widmanstiitten lines ?) And it was 
 held in reverence becau.se it had fallen from heaven (rfawir// r, arroy 
 ttuai at^ivnXoyoixJiy). As the young enthusiast .■ould not well ..-et to 
 Itome at once, ho sent a great painting of the stone an.l himself in the 
 act ot a.loration, whicli was put up by his orders ab.,ve tlie statue of 
 \ ictory m the senate chamber. The year after he entered Rome and 
 bu, t a magniticent temple for tliis strange go.i, whose image, unlilce those 
 ot Crreek and Roman gods, was not made with lutnds. He had Syrian 
 maidens dance and musicians circle in procession round it. Hecatombs 
 of vjctims he sacrificed before it, cattle and sheep. Eivulets of the best 
 and oldest wmes mingled with their bloo.l. The chief ofHcers of the army 
 and of the state assisted, in barbaric costume, to elevate above their 
 heads the golden vessels used in the ceremonies, while in a wondering 
 nng stood all that was noblest in the Eternal City. Those who smiled or 
 dared to scoff were mercilessly slain. Every ofHciating priest of other 
 gods had to preface his litany with the name of Elagabalus. When the 
 stone was brought into the city it Avas in a chariot adorned profusely with 
 gems and precious metals ; the horses, white, were led-no mortal' being 
 allowed to drive— and the emperor himself walked backward in front of 
 the aerolite, as being wishful to gaze uninterruptedly at the divine 
 
[a. iiarvkvJ 
 
 AEROLITES AND RELIGION 
 
 78 
 
 MyinliolH. In the lu'iirl.t „f sinnnicr. tho nUme w.w in liko nuvi.nor enrrimi 
 to 11 eoiiMtiy s»-iit,tlio I'oiul.s heinjr slrowri will, lioM-.lnst on its putli 
 S..un. tlio ompon.i- who, l,y tl.o wiy. i,iinTi,.(l and divorciMl tl„ve wives 
 in as inaiiy yciii-s. tliouii'i.t (ho go.l would l>.'{l.i.ttor pleasod if ho woro 
 iimtcd. too. so to Ids timt" l.o hron-lit tlu' Pi.llmlinm. wideh liml Uwu 
 from tliodawn (d' Uonian history cnncoaU'd from ovoiy oyo. Tho faiioy 
 'lid not iu«t long, ho thought tin. Palladium loo martial and sovorc in 
 tompor, and ho sent tot 'arthagv for Iho o.iually prohistoric Onrania (Virgo 
 Ca'lostis), which Dido sot uj) thoro whon sho first moasu rod otf its lil.ort'ros 
 with iior fiimotiH strips of ox-hido. It is not slatod how this osoapod 
 Mhon Soipio razod the oily, and, ])orhaps, it was an imago, not a slono. 
 Wil h his roiigod ohook-s and hlaokonod oyos or .yo-iashos, with his st rango 
 yesturo and harliario orgios, tho soldiors soon tirod of him. and whon iho 
 inside rinu- had matters well |)roparod. an ond was put to this faroo and 
 to tho lifo of tho aoolyto omporor (tho priest, porhu])8. of a dchasod 
 Zoroaslrian or Mithraito oroo.j) at or ahout tho timo of his oighhvnih 
 Inrthday. Kxil from history tho stone !io worship])od. with its pittings, 
 crust, markings and other unmistakal.Jo oharactori.sties of aerolites. 
 
 To oomploto this paper without a roforonoo to tho sin-niHoanoo of the 
 noise whi(di accompanies tho motoors would ho improper. Liko thunder, 
 it was the voice of the gods. In tho well known i)assago in Livv which 
 recounts liow stones fell on the Alhan mount, in tho roign of Tid'lus llns- 
 tilius, in a swirl liko a gust of hail (eon,/lolj<,fi), there is an interpretation 
 of the v.icos of the explosion-" Neglect not tiie worship of your local 
 deities." Something should he said, too, of tho talismanio properties 
 iittrihutod t(. weapons made from meteorites, such as the scinietar of 
 Attila, which may iiave heen made from meteoric iron, and tlie poniard 
 of Jehangir, which oortaink -was. 
 
 The latest notahlo instance of a connection hotweon aerolites and 
 religion is in H92, when, at Hnsishoini, Maximilian fought a hattle after 
 a shower of meteors, ;..„; won it. Tho largest of tho aerolites was long 
 preHervo(nn the clmr, ii there, and Maximilian, snhsequontly negotiating 
 witli the Turks, referred to this event as a seal of the divine favour.