The opening of Preface
In all ages meteoric stones have fallen on the earth. Many of them were found by persons who were in search of them; they preserved them, and thus collections were made in private rarity cabinets and in natural history cabinets. Many learned persons believed in meteoric stones, but many others were sceptical, and their attacks were so violent, and their mockery about stones that fell from the atmosphere, or were thrown by the men in the Moon to the inhabitants of the Earth, so sharp as to shake the belief of many a collector, and the happy possessor, fearing the mockery of the so-called learned men, concealed his treasures, or threw them away on the dust-hill, or in a ditch.