A NIGERIAN AEROLITE.
[To THE EDITOR or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The erroneous, but extremely plausible, assumption that only a solid body can strike a blow may account for the universal belief in thunderbolts. The identification of the hypothetical bolt with the very real aerolite is still —to judge by Major Larymore's letter in your issue of September 28th—plausible even to educated Europeans. But his letter admirably illustrates the growth of the primitive opinion which identifies the bolt with weapons of a forgotten stone age. The discovery of the axe-head in a but just struck by lightning would be a confusion of all sceptics for generations. The belief has been common in our own islands. Sir Walter Scott, when visiting Lerwick, was presented with a " superb collection of the stone axes (or adzes, or whatever they are) called cells. The Zetlanders call them thunderbolts." Stone arrow-beads were usually conceived as elf-bolts, but they were also associated with thunder. Witness Dr. Hickes's letter to Pepys (June 19th. 1700) telling " a strange story, but very well attested, of an Elf arrow that was shot at a venerable Irish Bishop by an Evil Spirit, in a terrible noise louder than thunder."—I am, Sir, &c., GEORGE G. LOANE.
Colet House, 1Vest Kensington, W.
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