ances of the superstition of "thunderstones"
which flourishes only where mentality is in a lamentable state--or
universally. In Malacca, Sumatra, and Java, natives say that stone axes
have often been found under trees that have been struck by lightning.
Blinkenberg does not dispute this, but says it is coincidence: that the
axes were of course upon the ground in the first place: that the natives
jumped to the conclusion that these carved stones had fallen in or with
lightning. In Central Africa, it is said that often have wedge-shaped,
highly polished objects of stone, described as "axes," been found
sticking in trees that have been struck by lightning--or by what seemed
to be lightning. The natives, rather like the unscientific persons of
Memphis, Tenn., when they saw snakes after a storm, jumped to the
conclusion that the "axes" had not always been sticking in the trees.
Livingstone (_Last Journal_, pages 83, 89, 442, 448) says that he had
never heard of stone implements used by natives of Africa. A writer in
the _Report of the Smithsonian Institution_, 1877-308, says that there
are a few.

That they are said, by the natives, to have fallen in thunderstorms.

As to luminosity, it is my lamentable acceptance that bodies falling
through this earth's atmosphere, if not warmed even, often fall with a
brilliant light, looking like flashes of lightning. This matter seems
important: we'll take it up later, with data. In Prussia, two stone
axes were found in the trunks of trees, one under the bark.
(Blinkenberg, _Thunder Weapons_, p. 100.)

The finders jumped to the conclusion that the axes had fallen there.

Another stone ax--or wedge-shaped object of worked stone--said to have
been found in a tree that had been struck by something that looked like
lightning. (_Thunder Weapons_, p. 71.)

The finder jumped to the conclusion.

Story told by Blinkenberg, of a woman, who lived near Kulsbjaergene,
Sweden, who found a flint near an old willow--"near her house." I
emphasize "near her house" because that means familiar ground. The
willow had been split by something.

She jumped.

Cow killed by lightning, or by what looked like lightning (Isle of Sark,
near Guernsey). The peasant who owned the cow dug up the ground at the
spot and found a small greenstone "ax." Blinkenberg says that he jumped
to the conclusion that it was this object that had fallen luminously,
killing the cow.

_Reliquary_, 1867-208:

A flint ax found b