________________
10
JAIN PHILOSOPHY & MODERN SCIENCE
to judge it by reading these accounts."
But meteors were not to be governed by the conclusions of the scientists They fell again and started falling here and there. There was a full shower of meteors in a village in France in the year 1803.
At this stage the previous beliefs and findings of the French Academy of Science were shaken. It appointed Biot, the famous Scientist, to enquire into the matter. Biot arrived at the conclusion that it was a fact that the meteors had fallen and also that they had fallen from the sky. Since then our knowledge about the fall of meteors has been gradually developing.
Sometimes meteors had fallen in huge numbers simultaneously. In France in the year 1803, three thousand meteors fell together at the same place The inhabitants of that place were very much perplexed. At another time one lakh meteors fell together in Pultusk-a city in Poland. Hungary had also experienced such a fall of meteors. Very recently, on the 19th July, 1912, about fourteen thousand meteors fell together in Arizona. Sometimes meteors get broken up into different pieces while crossing the layers of atmosphere but generally they are so broken up before they enter the layers of atmosphere. This fact is confirmed by the size of the broken pieces. Pieces which are broken up while nearing the surface of earth are more pointed in shape Some meteors appear to be as big as the moon,
