Every day many thousands of millions of objects from space impinge upon the outer reaches of our planet. The overwhelming majority of these are of such small dimensions as to be entirely consumed by the heat they generate in passing through the atmosphere.
But every now and then one of them a little larger than the rest survives the burning ordeal, and falls to Earth to become, ex post facto, what we call a meteorite.
Now to whom, one might wonder, does a meteorite belong?
Is the beneficial owner the person on whose land it falls, or an individual who happens to be on the spot and finds it in the first place? Or is it a kind of celestial treasure trove whose ownership is vested in the state?
In French law, the matter was decided in the 19th century by the celebrated case of Mercier v Vollard. In the autumn of 1841 a farm labourer working in the fields heard a sudden loud whistling, followed by a huge explosion and the sound of something falling from the sky about 100 yards away.
He found the meteorite in a shallow crater about a foot deep, it having hit the ground at a spot midway between two beds of vines, one of which belonged to a Mme Guichet, and the other to a M Vollard.
The frightened labourer, however, joined a third party, as it were; he took the meteorite to the Chateau Grammont, where he sold it to the local squire, a Dr Mercier.
In due course, Vollard took Dr Mercier to court to claim "his" meteorite back, and the tribunal handed down its judgment:
"Considering that such a stone, before it falls to Earth, belongs to nobody, and that Vollard claims it to be his because it came to rest upon his land; considering that Mercier claims this fact to be irrelevant, and that the stone should belong to the `first occupant or inventor', in which place he puts himself; considering also that in this case one cannot say that the stone in question had been incorporated into Vollard's field in such a way as to become an intrinsic part of it, or had raised its intrinsic value or that of its periodic products; and considering that the stone cannot be identified with the ground on which it fell, any more than could a watch or other precious object that a traveller might lose; this tribunal for these reasons declares Vollard's claim to be without foundation."
How would M Vollard and Mme Guichet have settled their competing claims had the initial action been successful? This can only be a matter of speculation.