E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Thunderbolts.
Jupiter was depicted by the ancients as a man seated on a throne, holding a sceptre in his left hand and thunderbolts in his right. Modern science has proved there are no such things as thunderstones, though many tons of bolides (2 syl.), aërolites (3 syl.), meteors, or shooting stars (of stony or metallic substance) fall annually to our earth. These “air-stones,” however, have no connection with thunder and lightning.
