projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every
direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half
away. The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose
against the dawn.

The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the
scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its
descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder,
caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured
incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached
the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most
meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however,
still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near
approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the
unequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred
to him that it might be hollow.

He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made
for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at
its unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some
evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully
still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge,
was already warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning,
there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the
faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on
the common.

Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey
clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling
off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and