of a place in the museum
we're writing. He argues against belief in all external origins "for our
credit as Englishmen." He is a patriot, but I think that these
foreigners had a small chance "in the first place" for hospitality from
him.

Then comes a "small lump of iron (two inches in diameter)" said to have
fallen, during a thunderstorm, at Brixton, Aug. 17, 1887. Mr. Symons
says: "At present I cannot trace it."

He was at his best at Notting Hill: there's been a marked falling off in
his later manner:

In the London _Times_, Feb. 1, 1888, it is said that a roundish object
of iron had been found, "after a violent thunderstorm," in a garden at
Brixton, Aug. 17, 1887. It was analyzed by a chemist, who could not
identify it as true meteoritic material. Whether a product of
workmanship like human workmanship or not, this object is described as
an oblate spheroid, about two inches across its major diameter. The
chemist's name and address are given: Mr. J. James Morgan: Ebbw Vale.

Garden--familiar ground--I suppose that in Mr. Symons' opinion this
symmetric object had been upon the ground "in the first place," though
he neglects to say this. But we do note that he described this object as
a "lump," which does not suggest the spheroidal or symmetric. It is our
notion that the word "lump" was, because of its meaning of
amorphousness, used purposely to have the next datum stand alone,
remote, without similars. If Mr. Symons had said that there had been a
report of another round object that had fallen from the sky, his readers
would be attracted by an agreement. He distracts his readers by
describing in terms of the unprecedented--

"Iron cannon ball."

It was found in a manure heap, in Sussex, after a thunderstorm.

However, Mr. Symons argues pretty reasonably, it seems to me, that,
given a cannon ball in a manure heap, in the first place, lightning
might be attracted by it, and, if seen to strike there, the untutored
mind, or mentality below the average, would leap or jump, or proceed
with less celerity, to the conclusion that the iron object had fallen.

Except that--if every farmer isn't upon very familiar ground--or if
every farmer doesn't know his own manure heap as well as Mr. Symons knew
his writing desk--

Then comes the instance of a man, his wife, and his three daughters, at
Casterton, Westmoreland, who were looking out at their lawn, during a
thunderstorm, when they "considered," as Mr. Symons expresses