BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY)
CROMWELL ROAD, LONDON, S.W.
* * * * *
MINERAL DEPARTMENT.
* * * * *
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
STUDY OF METEORITES,
WITH A LIST OF THE METEORITES REPRESENTED
IN THE COLLECTION.
BY
L. FLETCHER, M.A., F.R.S.,
KEEPER OF MINERALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM;
FORMERLY FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AND MILLARD LECTURER
AT TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD.
* * * * *
TENTH EDITION.
* * * * *
[_This Guide-book can be obtained only at the Museum; written
applications should be addressed to "The Director, Natural History
Museum, Cromwell Road, London, S. W."_]
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES.
1908.
[_All rights reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.
PREFACE.
In the accompanying list, the topographical arrangement has been
continued for those meteorites of which the circumstances of the fall
are without satisfactory record. This mode of arrangement brings near
together fragments which have been found in the same district at
different times; in some cases they belong to the same meteoritic fall.
As the dates of discovery of the masses and the dates of recognition
of meteoric origin, upon which other lists of meteorites are based,
have been stated very differently in the publications of the principal
museums, a reference in each instance to the best available report, and
a brief extract from it, are given.
Even as regards the dates of fall of the remaining meteorites there
has been much discrepancy in the various lists: every case in which
the date here given has been found to differ from that recorded in any
other list has been verified by reference to the published reports of
the fall.
For the convenience of collectors there has been added (page 107) an
alphabetical list of those meteorites of which specimens have been
first acquired since the issue of the last list (January 1, 1904).
L. FLETCHER.
_May 1, 1908._
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
ARRANGEMENT OF THE COLLECTION 7
HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION 8
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF METEORITES 17
LIST OF THE METEORITES REPRESENTED IN THE COLLECTION ON
MAY 1, 1908:--
I. Siderites or Meteoric Irons 66
II. Siderolites 91
III. Aerolites or Meteoric Stones 95
LIST OF RECENT ADDITIONS 107
LIST OF BRITISH METEORITES 107
APPENDIX TO THE LIST OF THE METEORITES:--
A. Native Iron (of terrestrial origin) 108
B. Pseudo-meteorites 109
LIST OF THE CASTS OF METEORITES 110
INDEX TO THE COLLECTION 111
[Illustration: Plan of the Mineral Gallery]
ARRANGEMENT OF THE COLLECTION.
By ascending the large staircase opposite to the Grand Entrance and
turning to the right, the visitor will reach a corridor leading to the
Department of Minerals.
From the entrance of the Gallery the large mass of meteoric iron,
weighing three and a half tons, found about 1854 at Cranbourne, near
Melbourne, Australia, and presented to the Museum in 1862 by Mr. James
Bruce, can be seen in the Pavilion at the opposite end of the Gallery.
The other meteorites will be found in the same room, the smaller
specimens in the four central cases, and the larger on separate stands.
The casts of meteorites are exhibited in the lower parts of the cases.
The specimens referred to in the 'Introduction to the Study of
Meteorites' are in case 4, and are arranged, as far as is practicable,
in the order of reference.
The remaining specimens are classified as:--
SIDERITES, consisting chiefly of metallic nickel-iron (panes
1a-2d):
SIDEROLITES, consisting chiefly of metallic nickel-iron and
stony matter, both in large proportions (panes 2e, 2f): and
AEROLITES, consisting chiefly of stony matter (panes 2g-3o).
At the beginning of each class are placed those meteorites of
which the fall has been observed.
The position of any meteorite in the cases may be found by reference
to the Index (p. 111) and to the second column of the List of the
Collection (p. 66).
HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION.
Until nearly fifty years after the establishment of the British Museum,
meteorite collections nowhere existed, for the reports of the fall of
stones from the sky were then treated as absurd, and the exhibition of
such stones in a public museum would have been a matter for ridicule;
a few stones, which had escaped destruction, were scattered about
Europe, and were in the possession of private individuals curious
enough to preserve bodies concerning the fall of which upon our globe
such reports had been given. Hence it happened that in 1807 not
more than four meteoric stones were in the British Museum: three of
them, _Krakhut_, _Wold Cottage_ and _Siena_, had been presented in
1802-3 by Sir Joseph Banks; the fourth was a stone of the _L'Aigle_
fall, presented in 1804 by Prof. Biot, the distinguished physicist.
A fragment of the mass met with by the traveller Pallas had been
presented by the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg as early as
1776; this, and the fragments of _Otumpa_ and _Senegal River_, were
long regarded by scientific men as specimens of "native iron," and of
terrestrial origin.
In the year 1807, happily for the future development of the Mineral
Collection, Mr. Charles Konig (formerly König) was appointed
Assistant-keeper, and six years later was promoted to the Keepership
of the then undivided Natural History Department; it thus came about
that for thirty-eight years the senior officer of the Natural History
Department of the Museum was one who had an intense enthusiasm for
minerals and made them his own special study. It was in Mr. Konig's
time that Parliament voted (1810) a special grant of nearly £14,000
for the purchase of the minerals which had belonged to the Rt. Hon.
Charles Greville; with these passed into the possession of the Trustees
fragments of seven meteorites, including _Tabor_, which had been
acquired by Mr. Greville with the mineral cabinet of Baron Born. The
increase of the Natural History Collections was such that in 1827 the
Botanical, and in 1837 the Zoological, specimens were assigned to
special Departments, after which Mr. Konig, as Keeper of "Minerals
(including Fossils)," was left free to devote his attention to those
parts of Natural History to which he was more particularly attached.
During Mr. Konig's Keepership, though numerous and excellent mineral
specimens were acquired, no great effort was made to render the
meteorite collection itself complete; at his death in 1851, 70 falls
were represented by specimens. The following had been presented:--
_Stannern:_ by the Imperial Museum of Vienna, in 1814.
_Red River:_ by Prof. A. Bruce, in 1814.
_Mooresfort:_ by Mr. J. G. Children, F.R.S., in 1817, and by Dr. Blake,
in 1819.
_Adare:_ by Dr. Blake, in 1819.
The large _Otumpa_ iron, and a piece of the _Imilac_ siderolite: by Sir
Woodbine Parish, K.C.B., F.R.S., in 1826 and 1828 respectively.
_Bitburg:_ by Mr. Henry Heuland, in 1831.
_Krakhut:_ by Mr. Wm. Marsden, in 1834.
_Cold Bokkeveld_ meteorite: by Sir John Herschel, Bart., F.R.S., Sir
Thos. Maclear, F.R.S., and Mr. E. Charlesworth, in 1839 and 1845.
_Zacatecas:_ by Mr. T. Parkinson, in 1840.
_Akbarpur:_ by Captain P. T. Cautley, in 1843.
_Braunau_ and _Seeläsgen:_ by the Royal Society, in 1848.
After the death of Mr. Konig, Mr. G. R. Waterhouse, palæontologist,
was appointed Keeper of the composite Department. It was natural
that the palæontological side should then have its turn of special
development, and in fact the palæontological collections, already
important, increased from that time with great rapidity; the
mineralogical side, however, had additions made to it, though not
in the proportion allotted during the preceding years. During the
Keepership of Mr. Waterhouse (1851-7), only specimens of two additional
meteorites were added to the collection; one of them, _Madoc_, was
presented in 1856 by Sir Wm. E. Logan, F.R.S.; also additional
fragments of _Imilac_ were presented by Mr. W. Bollaert in 1857.
In the year 1857, a further division of the Natural History Collections
took place; the mineralogical and the palæontological specimens being
assigned to special Departments, and the Minerals placed in the
Keepership of Prof. Story-Maskelyne. Under him the Mineral Collection
was rendered as complete as possible in all its branches; and it is
owing entirely to the unflagging energy he displayed, both in the
search for, and in the acquisition of the best obtainable specimens,
that the Mineral Collection was brought to its present position of
general excellence. Perhaps the greatest relative advance was made
in the improvement of the Collection of Meteorites. Perceiving that
only half of the falls represented at Vienna were represented in the
British Museum, and that the difficulty of making a fairly complete
collection of such bodies must increase enormously as time goes on,
owing to the absorption of the specimens by public museums, Mr.
Maskelyne immediately after his appointment tried to fill up the gaps.
In the first place, the meteorite collections of Dr. A. Krantz, Mr. R.
P. Greg, and Mr. R. Campbell, and many meteorites belonging to Mr. W.
Nevill and Prof. C. U. Shepard, were acquired by purchase in 1861-2.
During the interval (1857-63), the whole or parts of many
meteorites were presented to the Museum:--
From Great Britain.--_Perth:_ by Mr. W. Nevill.
From Russia.--_Tula:_ by Dr. J. Auerbach of Moscow.
From India.--_Bustee_, _Dhurmsala_, _Durala_ and _Shalka:_ by
the Secretary of State for India.
_Assam_, _Butsura_, _Futtehpur_, _Khiragurh_, _Manegaum_,
_Mhow_, _Moradabad_, _Segowlie_ and _Umballa:_ by the
Asiatic Society of Bengal.
_Nellore_ and _Parnallee:_ by Sir W. T. Denison, K.C.B.
_Kusiali_ and _Pegu:_ by Dr. Thos. Oldham, F.R.S.
_Kaee:_ by Sir Thos. Maclear, F.R.S.
_Dhurmsala:_ by Mr. G. Lennox Conyngham.
From Australia.--The large _Cranbourne_ iron: by Mr. James Bruce.
From South America.--_Vaca Muerta:_ by Mr. W. Taylour Thomson.
_Imilac:_ by Mr. W. Bollaert.
An _Atacama_ iron: by Mr. Lewis Joel.
From North America.--_Tucson:_ by the Town Authorities of San Francisco.
During the same interval, exchanges were made with the museums of
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Heidelberg, and Göttingen, through
Professors Daubrée, Haidinger, Rose, Hoff, Bunsen, and Wöhler,
respectively: and also with the following private collectors:--Dr.
Abich of Dorpat, Dr. J. Auerbach of Moscow, Mr. R. P. Greg of
Manchester, Prof. C. U. Shepard of New Haven, U.S.A., and Dr. Sismonda
of Turin.
The result was that by the end of 1863 the number of meteoric falls
represented in the collection was 204, and thus had been almost trebled
during Mr. Maskelyne's first six years of office.
Meanwhile, although Mr. Maskelyne, with the help of a single assistant
(Mr. Thomas Davies), was then rearranging the general collection of
minerals according to a new system of classification, time was found
for a scientific examination of the meteorites thus being acquired.
At that time the Department was without a chemical laboratory, and
not even a blowpipe could be used, owing to the necessity of guarding
against a possible destruction of the Museum by fire. Hence recourse
was had to the microscope, and as early as 1861, a microscope fitted
with a revolving graduated stage and an eye-piece goniometer was
constructed, under the Keeper's directions, for the examination of thin
sections of meteorites with the aid of polarised light.
Working in this way, and with the simplest chemical tests, Mr.
Maskelyne was the first to announce in 1862 the discovery in the
Bustee meteorite of a mineral, unknown in terrestrial mineralogy,
to which he gave the name of Oldhamite, and in 1863, the more than
probable occurrence of Enstatite as an important meteoritic ingredient
(Nellore). This method of determining the mineral constituents of a
rock-section by means of the relation of the vibration-traces to known
crystallographic lines, thus first and of necessity employed for the
discrimination of the minerals in meteorites, is now in general use in
the investigation, not only of meteoritic, but of terrestrial rocks.
About the same time, from the Breitenbach meteorite were extracted
crystals of Bronzite, which yielded the first crystallographic elements
obtained for that mineral: the measurements were made and published by
Dr. Viktor von Lang, then assistant in the Department (1862-4) and now
Professor of Physics at Vienna.
The microscope was further applied to the mechanical separation of
the different mineral ingredients of a meteorite: and by picking out
in this toilsome manner the different mineral ingredients from the
crumbled material of the Bustee aerolite, and from the residue of the
Breitenbach siderolite left after the iron had been removed by mercuric
chloride, the several silicates contained in these meteorites were
isolated for future analysis. From the particles of colourless mineral
thus obtained from the Breitenbach meteorite, one kind was selected
in 1867, of which the crystals presented a zone of orthosymmetry
containing two optic axes, and yielded two similar cleavages in a zone
perpendicular to the former. This ingredient was afterwards (1869)
announced to consist wholly of silica, a substance which, before the
isolation of this mineral, was only known to occur as quartz, when
in crystals, and these belong to the hexagonal system: to the new
mineral Mr. Maskelyne later assigned the name of Asmanite. In 1868
was published by Vom Rath the discovery of a species of terrestrial
silica, the crystals of which were regarded as belonging to the
hexagonal system, though their angular elements were distinct from
those of quartz: this mineral, named by him Tridymite, has since been
found (1878) to present optical and other characters inconsistent with
true hexagonal symmetry, and is probably identical in its specific
characters with the meteoritic asmanite.
Further, another mineral occurring as minute gold-yellow octahedra in
the Bustee meteorite was recognised as new to mineralogy, and termed
Osbornite.
It was not till 1867, when a laboratory was fitted up outside the
Museum precincts, that it became possible to make a complete chemical
examination of these materials, which had been gradually prepared and
carefully picked for analysis. In that year the late Dr. Walter Flight
was appointed to assist in the laboratory-work of the Department,
and afterwards gave valuable help in the chemical analysis of the
above materials; the results were quite confirmatory of those already
obtained by aid of the microscope and the simple tests.
Since the great increase made during the first six years of Prof.
Maskelyne's Keepership, the Collection has continued to grow, though
necessarily at a less rapid rate.
Of the specimens added after 1863, the following have been presented:--
1864-7: _Manbhoom_, _Muddoor_ and _Pokhra:_ by Dr. Thos. Oldham,
F.R.S.
1864: _Agra:_ by Mr. Wm. Nevill.
1864: _Atacama_ (stone): by Mr. Alfred Lutschaunig.
1865-70: _Jamkheir_, _Lodran_, _Shytal_, _Supuhee_ and _Udipi:_
by the Secretary of State for India.
1865: _Nerft:_ by Prof. Grewingk.
1865: _Ski:_ by Prof. Kjerulf.
1867-70: _Goalpara_, _Gopalpur_, _Khetri_, _Moti-ka-nagla_,
_Pulsora_ and _Sherghotty:_ by the Trustees of the Indian
Museum. Calcutta.
1867-75: _Knyahinya_ and _Zsadány:_ by the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences.
1869: _Krähenberg:_ by Dr. Neumayer.
1871: _Searsmont:_ by Dr. A. C. Hamlin.
1873: Fragments of thirteen meteorites already represented: by
Mr. Benj. Bright.
1874: _Bethany_ (_Wild_): by the Trustees of the South African
Museum, Capetown.
1875: _Amana:_ by Dr. G. Hinrichs.
1876: _Shingle Springs:_ by Mr. E. N. Winslow.
1876: _Rowton:_ by the Duke of Cleveland.
1877: _Khairpur_ and _Jhung:_ by Mr. A. Brandreth.
1877: _Verkhne-Dnieprovsk:_ by Prof. Koulibini.
1878: _Cronstad:_ by Mr. John Sanderson.
1878: _Santa Catharina:_ by Prof. Daubrée.
1879: _Imilac_, _Mount Hicks_ and _Serrania de Varas:_ by Mr.
George Hicks.
1881: _Middlesbrough:_ by the Directors of the North Eastern
Railway.
1882: _Veramin:_ by the Shah of Persia.
1882: _Vaca Muerta:_ by Mr. F. A. Eck.
1883: _Ogi:_ by Naotaro Nabeshima, formerly Daimiô of Ogi,
Japan.
1885: _Ivanpah:_ by Mr. H. G. Hanks.
1885: _Youndegin:_ by the Rev. Charles G. Nicolay.
1885 _et seq_.: _Ambapur Nagla_, _Bishunpur_, _Bori_,
_Chandpur_, _Dokáchi_, _Donga Kohrod_, _Esnandes_, _Gambat_,
_Heidelberg_, _Kahangarai_, _Kodaikanal_, _Lalitpur_,
_Nagaria_, _Nammianthal_, _Nawalpali_, _Pirthalla_, _Sindhri_,
_Wessely_ and _Wöhler's iron:_ by the Director of the
Geological Survey of India.
1885: _Lucky-Hill:_ by the Governors of the Jamaica Institute.
1886: _Nenntmannsdorf:_ by Dr. H. B. Geinitz.
1886: _Jenny's Creek:_ by Mr. John N. Tilden.
1887: _Djati-Pengilon:_ by the Government of the Netherlands.
1887, 1906: _Albuquerque:_ by Dr. Richard Pearce.
1889: _Bhagur_ and _Kalambi:_ by the Bombay Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society.
1890: _Bendegó River:_ by the Director of the National Museum,
Rio de Janeiro.
1891: _Dundrum:_ by the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.
1891: _Farmington:_ by Dr. G. F. Kunz.
1891-1903: _Barratta_ and _Thunda:_ by Prof. A. Liversidge,
F.R.S.
1894: _Makariwa:_ by Prof. G. H. F. Ulrich.
1894: _Bherai:_ by the Nawab of Junagadh, India.
1895: _Concepcion:_ by Mr. W. Taylor.
1896: _Madrid:_ by Don Miguel Merino of Madrid.
1897: _Cold Bokkeveld:_ by Mrs. Whitwell.
1899, 1906: _Caperr:_ by the Director of the La Plata Museum.
1899: _El Ranchito_ (Bacubirito): by Mr. O. H. Howarth.
1899: _Kokstad:_ by the Trustees of the South African Museum.
1899: _Zomba:_ by Sir A. Sharpe, C.B., K.C.M.G., Mr. J. F.
Cunningham, and Mr. J. McClounie.
1901: _Ness City:_ by Dr. H. A. Ward.
1903: _Caratash:_ by His Highness Kiamil Pasha.
1904: _Narraburra:_ by Mr. H. C. Russell, C.M.G., F.R.S.
1905: _Fukutomi, Oshima, Tanakami and Yon[=o]zu:_ by Dr. C.
Ishikowa.
1905: _Kota-Kota:_ by Mr. A. J. Swann.
1907: _Kangra:_ by Prof. W. N. Hartley, F.R.S.
1908: _Uwet:_ by the Governor of Southern Nigeria.
Since the same year (1863) meteoritic exchanges have been made with the
museums of Belgrade, Berlin, Blömfontein, Breslau, Calcutta, Calne,
Cambridge, Chicago (Field Columbian Museum), Christiania, Debreczin,
Dresden, Fremantle, Göttingen, Helsingfors, Munich, Odessa, Paris,
Pau, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, St. Petersburg (Institute of Mines), South
Africa, Stockholm, Sydney, Transylvania, Troyes, Utrecht, Vienna,
Washington, Wisconsin University, and Yale College; and also with the
following:--Dr. Abich of Dorpat, Dr. J. Auerbach of Moscow, Mr. S. C.
H. Bailey of Cortlandt-on-Hudson, U.S.A., Prof. Baumhauer of Haarlem,
Mr. C. S. Bement of Philadelphia, U.S.A., Dr. Breithaupt of Freiberg,
Dr. A. Brezina of Vienna, Mr. J. B. Gregory of London, Prof. C. T.
Jackson of Boston, U.S.A., Mr. Henry Ludlam of London, Prof. W. Mallet
of Virginia, U.S.A., Prof. Vom Rath of Bonn, Prof. C. U. Shepard of New
Haven, U.S.A., His Excellency Julien de Siemachko of St. Petersburg,
Prof. Lawrence Smith of Louisville, U.S.A., Mr. J. N. Tilden of New
York, U.S.A., and Dr. Henry A. Ward of Chicago, U.S.A.
In this way, by the generosity and self-denial of donors, by the
somewhat difficult method of exchange, and by purchase, it has been
possible to get together the fine representative collection of
meteorites now in the British Museum.
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
STUDY OF METEORITES.
* * * * *
_Most of the specimens here referred to are in Case 4 in the Pavilion
at the end of the Mineral Gallery._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The fall of stones from the sky formerly discredited.]
1. Till the beginning of the nineteenth century, the fall of stones
from the sky was an event, the actuality of which neither men of
science nor people in general could be brought to credit. Yet such
falls have been recorded from the earliest times, and the records
have occasionally been received as authentic by a whole nation. In
most cases, however, the witnesses of such an event have been treated
with the disrespect usually shown to reporters of the extraordinary,
and have been laughed at for their supposed delusions: this is less
to be wondered at when we remember that the witnesses of the arrival
of a stone from the sky have usually been few in number, unaccustomed
to exact observation, frightened both by what they saw and by what
they heard, and have had a common tendency towards exaggeration and
superstition.
[Sidenote: Ancient records.]
2. De Guignes in his Travels states that, according to old Chinese
manuscripts, falls of stones have again and again been observed in
China; the earliest mentioned is one which happened about 644 B.C.
A stone, famous through long ages,[1] fell in Phrygia and was
preserved there for many generations. About 204 B.C. it was demanded
from King Attalus and taken with great ceremony to Rome. It is
described as "a black stone, in the figure of a cone, circular below
and ending in an apex above."
In his History of Rome, Livy tells of a shower of stones on the Alban
Mount, about 652 B.C., which so impressed the Senate that a nine days'
solemn festival was decreed; as the shower lasted for two days, it was
doubtless the result of volcanic action; other instances of the "rain
of stones" in Italy, mentioned by the same author, had possibly a
similar origin.
Plutarch relates the fall of a stone in Thrace about 470 B.C., during
the time of Pindar, and according to Pliny, the stone was still
preserved in his day, 500 years afterwards. The latter records two
other falls, one in Asia Minor, the other in Macedonia.
[Sidenote: Worship of meteoric stones.]
3. These falls from the sky, when credited at all, have been deemed
prodigies or miracles, and the stones have been regarded as objects for
reverence and worship. It has even been conjectured that the worship
of such stones was the earliest form of idolatry. The Phrygian stone,
mentioned above, was worshipped at Pessinus by the Phrygians and
Ph[oe]nicians as Cybele, "the mother of the gods," and its transference
to Rome followed the announcement by an oracle that possession of the
stone would secure to the State a continual increase of prosperity.
Similarly, the Diana of the Ephesians, "which fell down from Jupiter,"
and the image of Venus at Cyprus, appear to have been, not statues,
but conical or pyramidal stones. A stone, of which the history goes
back far beyond the seventh century, is still revered by the Moslems as
one of their holiest relics, and is preserved at Mecca built into the
northeastern corner of the Kaaba. The late Paul Partsch,[2] for many
years Keeper of Minerals in the Imperial Museum of Vienna, considered
that the meteoric origin of the Kaaba stone was sufficiently proved
by descriptions which had been submitted to him. A stone which fell
in Japan in the year 1741, [Sidenote: Pane 4c.] and was presented to
the British Museum in 1883, had long been made an annual offering in
a temple of Ogi at one of the Japanese religious festivals. It may
be added that a stone which lately fell in India[3] was decked with
flowers, daily anointed with ghee (clarified butter), and subjected to
frequent ceremonial worship and coatings of sandal-wood powder. The
stone was placed on a terrace constructed for it at the place where it
struck the ground, and a subscription was made for the erection of a
shrine.
[Sidenote: The oldest undoubted meteoric stone still preserved.]
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
4. The oldest undoubted sky-stone still preserved is that which was
long suspended by a chain from the vault of the choir of the parish
church of Ensisheim in Elsass, and is now kept in the Rathhaus of that
town. The following is a translated extract from a document which was
preserved in the church:--
"On the 16th of November, 1492, a singular miracle happened:
for between 11 and 12 in the forenoon, with a loud crash of
thunder and a prolonged noise heard afar off, there fell in
the town of Ensisheim a stone weighing 260 pounds. It was seen
by a child to strike the ground in a field near the canton
called Gisgaud, where it made a hole more than five feet deep.
It was taken to the church as being a miraculous object. The
noise was heard so distinctly at Lucerne, Villing, and many
other places, that in each of them it was thought that some
houses had fallen. King Maximilian, who was then at Ensisheim,
had the stone carried to the castle: after breaking off two
pieces, one for the Duke Sigismund of Austria and the other
for himself, he forbade further damage, and ordered the stone
to be suspended in the parish church."
[Sidenote: Scientific men begin to investigate the reports.]
5. Three French Academicians, one of whom was the afterwards renowned
chemist Lavoisier, presented to the Academy in 1772 a report on the
analysis of a stone said to have been seen to fall at Lucé on September
13, 1768. [Sidenote: Pane 4c.] As the identity of lightning with
the electric spark had been recently established by Franklin, they
were in advance convinced that "thunder-stones" existed only in the
imagination; and never dreaming of the existence of a "sky-stone" which
had no relation to a "thunder-stone," they somewhat easily assured
both themselves and the Academy that there was nothing unusual in the
mineralogical characters of the Lucé specimen, their verdict being that
the stone was an ordinary one which had been struck and altered by
lightning.
[Sidenote: Chladni argues that the bodies come from outer space.]
6. In 1794 the German philosopher Chladni, famed for his researches
into the laws of sound, brought together numerous accounts of the fall
of bodies from the sky, and called the attention of the scientific
world to the fact that several masses of iron, of which he specially
considers two, had in all probability come from outer space to this
planet.[4]
[Sidenote: The Pallas iron.]
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
One of them is the mass still known as the Pallas or Krasnojarsk
iron.[5] This irregular mass, weighing about 1500 lbs., of which the
greater part is in the Museum at St. Petersburg, was met with at
Krasnojarsk by the traveller Pallas in the year 1772, and had been
found in 1749 by a Cossack on the surface of the highest part of a
lofty mountain between Krasnojarsk and Abakansk in Siberia, in the
midst of a schistose district: it was regarded by the Tartars as a
"holy thing fallen from heaven." The interior is composed of a ductile
iron, which, though brittle at a high temperature, can be forged either
cold or at a moderate heat; its large sponge-like pores are filled with
an amber-coloured olivine; the texture is uniform, and the olivine
equally distributed; a vitreous varnish had preserved it from rust.
The fragment in the case, weighing about 7 lbs., was presented to the
Trustees in 1776 by the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.
[Sidenote: The Otumpa iron.]
[Sidenote: Separate stand.]
A second specimen referred to is that which in 1783 Don Michael Rubin
de Celis was sent by the Viceroy of Rio de la Plata to investigate;[6]
it had been found by Indians, searching for honey and wax, and trusting
to rain for drink, projecting about a foot above the ground near a
place called Otumpa, in the Gran Chaco Gualamba, South America, and was
at first thought to be the outcrop of an iron vein. Don Rubin de Celis
estimated the weight of this mass of malleable iron at thirty thousand
pounds, and reported that for a hundred leagues around there were
neither iron mines nor mountains nor even the smallest stones, and that
owing to the absence of water, there was not a single fixed habitation
in the country. There were several smaller masses at the locality;
one of them, weighing 1400 lbs., is shown on a separate stand in the
Pavilion: according to Sir Woodbine Parish, who presented it to the
Museum in 1826, it had been removed to Buenos Ayres at the beginning
of the struggle for Independence; it was a complimentary gift to Sir
Woodbine on the occasion of his being sent by Canning to acknowledge
the Independence of the State. A slice of this iron is shown in case 4c.
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
[Sidenote: Chladni's arguments.]
7. Chladni argued that these masses could not have been formed in
the wet way, for they had evidently been exposed to fire and slowly
cooled: that the absence of scoriæ in the neighbourhood, the extremely
hard and pitted crust, the ductility of the iron, and, in the case of
the Siberian mass, the regular distribution of the pores and olivine,
precluded the idea that they could have been formed where found,
whether by man, electricity, or an accidental conflagration: he was
driven to conclude that they had been formed elsewhere, and projected
thence to the places where they were discovered; and as no volcanoes
had been known to eject masses of iron, and as, moreover, no volcanoes
are met with in those regions, he held that the specimens referred to
must have actually fallen from the sky. Further, he sought to show that
the flight of a heavy body through the sky is the direct cause of the
luminous phenomenon known as a fire-ball.
[Sidenote: The fall of stones at Siena, in Tuscany.]
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
8. About seven o'clock on the evening of June 16, 1794, as if to direct
attention to Chladni's just published theory, there fell a shower of
stones at Siena, in Tuscany.
The event is described in the following letter, dated Siena, July 12,
1794, from the Earl of Bristol to Sir William Hamilton, K.B., F.R.S.,
at that time British Envoy-Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the
Court of Naples:--[7]
"In the midst of a most violent thunderstorm, about a dozen
stones of various weights and dimensions fell at the feet of
different persons, men, women and children. The stones are of
a quality not found in any part of the Siennese territory;
they fell about 18 hours after the enormous eruption of Mount
Vesuvius: which circumstance leaves a choice of difficulties
in the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon. Either these
stones have been generated in this igneous mass of clouds which
produced such unusual thunder, or, which is equally incredible,
they were thrown from Vesuvius, at a distance of at least 250
miles: judge, then, of its parabola. The philosophers here
incline to the first solution. I wish much, Sir, to know your
sentiments. My first objection was to the fact itself, but of
this there are so many eyewitnesses, it seems impossible to
withstand their evidence."
[Sidenote: The fall of a stone near Wold Cottage, Yorkshire.]
[Sidenote: Pane 4b.]
9. Soon afterwards there fell a stone in England itself. About three
o'clock in the afternoon of December 13, 1795, a labourer working
near Wold Cottage, a few miles from Scarborough, in Yorkshire,[8]
was terrified to see a stone fall about ten yards from where he was
standing. The stone, weighing 56 lbs., was found to have gone through
12 inches of soil and 6 inches of solid chalk rock. No thunder,
lightning, or luminous meteor accompanied the fall; but in the adjacent
villages there was heard an explosion likened by the inhabitants to
the firing of guns at sea, while in two of them the sounds were so
distinct of something singular passing through the air towards Wold
Cottage, that five or six people went to see if anything extraordinary
had happened to the house or grounds. No stone presenting the same
characters was known in the district. The stone is preserved in the
Museum Collection.
[Sidenote: Terrestrial origin still sought for.]
10. It seemed to be now impossible for any one to doubt the fall of
stones from the sky, but the reluctance of scientific men to grant an
extra-terrestrial origin to them is shown by the theories referred
to in the above letter to Sir William Hamilton, and is rendered even
more evident by the theory proposed in 1796 by Edward King, who
suggested that the stones had their origin in the condensation of a
cloud of ashes, mixed with pyritical dust and numerous particles of
iron, coming from some volcano. As the stones fell at Siena out of a
cloud coming from the North, while Vesuvius is really to the South,
he gravely suggested that in this case the cloud had been blown from
the South past Siena, and had then before its condensation into stone
been brought back by a change of wind. As to the fall of a stone near
Wold Cottage, he was not prepared either to believe or disbelieve the
witnesses until the matter had been more closely examined; but in
case the statements should prove worthy of credit, he points out the
possibility of the necessary dust-cloud having come from Mount Hecla in
Iceland.
[Sidenote: The fall of stones near Benares, in India.]
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
11. Later came a well-authenticated account of a more wonderful event
still. At 8 o'clock on the evening of December 19, 1798, many stones
fell at Krakhut, 14 miles from Benares, in India; the sky was perfectly
serene, not a cloud had been seen since December 11, and none was
seen for many days after. According to the observations of several
Europeans, as well as natives, in different parts of the country, the
fall of the stones was preceded by the appearance of a _ball of fire_,
which lasted for only a few instants, and was followed by an explosion
resembling thunder.
[Sidenote: Examination of stones by Howard.]
12. Fragments of the stones of Siena, Wold Cottage, and Krakhut, as
also of a stone said to have fallen on July 3, 1753, at Tabor, in
Bohemia, came into the hands of Edward Howard, and the comparative
results of a chemical and mineralogical investigation (the latter by
the Count de Bournon) of the stones from the above four places are
given in a paper read before the Royal Society of London, on February
25, 1802. Howard concludes as follows:--
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
"The mineralogical descriptions of the Lucé stone by the
French Academicians, of the Ensisheim stone by M. Barthold,
and of stones from the above four places (Siena, Wold Cottage,
Krakhut and Tabor) by the Count de Bournon, all exhibit a
striking conformity of character common to each of them, and
I doubt not but the similarity of component parts, especially
of the malleable alloy, together with the near approach of the
constituent proportions of the earth contained in each of the
four stones, will establish very strong evidence in favour
of the assertion that they have fallen on our globe. They
have been found at places very remote from each other, and at
periods also sufficiently distant. The mineralogists who have
examined them agree that they have no resemblance to mineral
substances properly so called, nor have they been described by
mineralogical authors."
[Sidenote: Could projectiles reach the earth from the moon?]
13. This paper aroused much interest in the scientific world, and,
though Chladni's view that such stones come from outer space was still
not generally accepted in France, it was there deemed more worthy of
consideration after Poisson[9] (following Laplace) had shown that a
body shot from the moon in the direction of the earth, with an initial
velocity of 7592 feet a second, would not fall back upon the moon, but
would actually, after a journey of sixty-four hours, reach the earth,
upon which, neglecting the resistance of the air, it would fall with a
velocity of about 31,508 feet a second.
[Sidenote: The fall of stones at L'Aigle, in France.]
[Sidenote: Pane 4c.]
14. Whilst the minds of the scientific men of France were in this
unsettled condition, there came a report that still another shower
of stones had fallen, this time in their own country, and within
easy reach of Paris. To settle the matter finally, if possible, the
physicist Biot, Member of the French Academy, was directed by the
Minister of the Interior to inquire into the event upon the spot. After
a careful examination of the stones and a comparison of the statements
of the villagers, Biot[10] was convinced that--
1. On Tuesday, April 26, 1803, about 1 P.M., there was a noise as
of a violent _explosion_ in the neighbourhood of L'Aigle, in the
department of Orne, followed by a rolling sound which lasted for
five or six minutes: the noise was heard for a distance of 75 miles
round.
2. Some moments before the explosion at L'Aigle, a _fire-ball_ in
quick motion was seen from several of the adjoining towns, though
not from L'Aigle itself.
3. There was absolutely no doubt that on the same day _many stones
fell_ in the neighbourhood of L'Aigle.
Biot estimated the number of the stones at two or three thousand; they
fell within an ellipse of which the larger axis was 6·2 miles, and the
smaller 2·5 miles; and this inequality might indicate not a single
explosion but a series of them. With the exception of a few little
clouds of ordinary character, the sky was quite clear.
The exhaustive report of Biot, and the completeness of his proofs,
compelled the whole of the scientific world to recognise the fall of
stones on the earth from outer space as an undoubted fact.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The times and places of fall are independent of terrestrial
circumstances.]
15. Since that date many falls have been observed, and the attendant
phenomena have been carefully investigated. These observations teach
us that _meteorites_, as they are now called, fall at all times of
the day and night, and at all seasons of the year, while they favour
no particular latitudes: also they are found to be quite independent
of the weather, and in many cases have fallen when the sky has been
perfectly clear; even where stones have fallen in what has been called
a thunder-storm, we may reasonably suppose that in most cases the
luminous phenomenon has been mistaken for a variety of lightning, and
the loud noise for thunder.
[Sidenote: Velocity of meteorites.]
16. From observations of the path and the time of flight of the
luminous meteor, it is calculated that meteorites enter the earth's
atmosphere with absolute velocities ranging from 10 to 45 miles a
second: the velocity actually observed is that relative to a person
at rest on the earth's surface; for the determination of the absolute
velocity of the meteorite, the motion of the observer with the earth
(about 18 miles a second) must be allowed for. Let us attempt to follow
the course of a small compact body moving at such a rate. So long as
the body is traversing "empty space," the only heat it receives is that
sent direct from the sun and stars; in general, the meteorite will
thus be probably very cold, and, owing to its small size and want of
luminosity, it will be invisible to an observer on the earth's surface.
After the meteorite enters the earth's atmosphere a very speedy change
must take place. [Sidenote: The resistance of the air.] Assuming
the law of resistance of the air for a planetary velocity to be the
same as that deduced from experiments with artillery, the astronomer
Schiaparelli[11] has shown that if a ball of 8 inches diameter and
32-1/3 lbs. weight enter the atmosphere with a velocity of 44-3/4 miles
a second, its velocity on arriving at a point where the barometric
pressure is still only 1/760th of that at the earth's surface will have
been already reduced to 3-1/6 miles a second. From this it is clear
that the speed of the meteorite after the whole of the atmosphere has
been traversed will be extremely small, and comparable with that of
an ordinary falling body. From experiments made by Professor A. S.
Herschel, it has been calculated that the velocity of the meteorite
which fell at Middlesbrough, in Yorkshire, on March 14, 1881, was, on
striking the ground, only 412 feet a second. From the depth of the
hole (20 to 24 inches) made in stiff loam by the stone which fell at
Hvittis, in Finland, on October 21, 1901, it has been estimated by Mr.
Borgström that the meteorite had a velocity of 584 feet a second when
it reached the earth. He further calculates that the stone would have
acquired virtually the same velocity if it had been merely allowed to
fall, from a position of rest, under the action of gravity, through an
infinite atmosphere having the same density as at the earth's surface.
In the case of the Hessle fall, several stones fell on the ice, which
was only a few inches thick, and rebounded without either breaking the
ice or being broken themselves.
[Sidenote: Transformation of the energy.]
17. Further, Schiaparelli pointed out that, in the case imagined by
him, the energy already converted into heat would be sufficient to
raise 198,400 pounds of water from freezing point to boiling point
under the ordinary barometric pressure. The greater part of this heat
is, no doubt, carried off by the air through which the meteorite
passes; but still the wonder is, not that a meteorite is small on
reaching the earth's surface, but that any of it is left to "tell the
tale."
[Sidenote: The cloud, ball of fire and trail.]
This sudden generation of heat will cause fusion, and even luminosity,
of the outer material of the meteorite, and in some cases a combustion
of some of its constituents: the products of the thermal and mechanical
action sufficiently account for the _cloud_ from which the meteorite is
generally seen to emerge as a ball of fire, and also for the visible
trail often left behind. The ball of fire has often an apparent
diameter larger even than that of the moon, and is sometimes too bright
for the eye to gaze upon.
[Sidenote: The meteorite is only luminous in the first part of its
flight through the air.]
18. Owing to the quick reduction of speed, the luminosity will be
a feature of the higher, not the lower, part of the course. The
Orgueil meteorite of May 14, 1864, was so high when luminous that,
notwithstanding its almost easterly motion, it was seen over a space of
country ranging from the Pyrenees to the north of Paris, a distance of
more than 300 miles.
[Sidenote: The time of flight through the air is very brief.]
19. Next we may remark that the time of flight in the earth's
atmosphere will be very short, and reckoned only by seconds. Even when
the meteorite is wholly metallic, if we may judge from the time one end
of a poker may be held in the hand whilst the other end is in the fire,
the heat will not have had time to get far below the surface before the
body will have reached the ground. [Sidenote: Pane 4d.]
[Sidenote: The crust.]
As a matter of fact, meteorites are almost invariably found to be
covered with a _crust_ or varnish, such as would be caused by strong
heating, and its thinness shows the slight depth to which the heat has
had time to penetrate; in the case of the stones, the greater part
of the suddenly heated superficial material must chip off and be left
behind at all parts of the track of the meteor. The aspect of the crust
varies according to the mineral constitution of the meteorites: it is
generally black, and in most cases dull, as in High Possil, Zsadány and
Orgueil, [Sidenote: Pane 4d.] but sometimes shiny, as in Stannern, or
partly dull and partly shiny, as in Dyalpur; rarely, it is of a dark
grey colour, as in Mezö-Madaras and some of the stones which fell in
the neighbourhood of Mocs. In the case of the Pultusk meteorite of
January 30, 1868, several thousands of stones, [Sidenote: Panes 4efg.]
varying from the size of a man's head to that of a small nut, were
picked up, each covered with a crust: fifty-six of the stones of this
fall are shown in the case.
[Sidenote: The crust.]
20. The crust is not of equal thickness at every point; for, the
form of the meteorite being a result of oft-repeated fracture, the
constantly changing surface must be very irregular, and its different
parts must be heated to different temperatures and be exposed to
different amounts of mechanical action. Sometimes, owing to the motion
of the meteorite through the air, the crust is so marked as to indicate
the position of the meteorite in regard to its line of motion at a
certain part of its course; and this relation is rendered more clear
in some cases by evidence that melted material has been driven to the
back of the moving mass. The Nedagolla iron and the Goalpara stone
illustrate this peculiarity. [Sidenote: Pane 4h.]
[Sidenote: The pittings.]
21. Further, the surface of a meteorite is generally covered with
_pittings_, which have been compared in form to thumb-marks: stones
from the Supuhee, Futtehpur, [Sidenote: Pane 4h.] and Knyahinya falls
present good examples of this character. It is remarkable that pittings
bearing a close resemblance to those of meteorites have been observed
on the large partially burned grains of gunpowder, which have been
[Sidenote: Pane 4h.] picked up near the muzzle after the firing of the
35-ton and 80-ton guns at Woolwich. The pitting of the gunpowder grains
is attributed to unequal combustion, but that of meteorites seems
to be due not so much to inequality of combustibility as to that of
conductivity, fusibility and frangibility of the matter at the surface.
[Sidenote: Fragmentary form of meteorites.]
22. As picked up, complete and covered with crust, meteorites are not
spherical, nor have they any definite shape: in fact, they are always
irregular angular fragments, such as would be obtained on breaking up a
rock presenting no regularity of structure.
[Sidenote: Pane 4h.]
In the case of the Butsura fall of May 12, 1861,[12] fragments of the
stone were picked up three or four miles apart, and, wonderful to say,
it was possible to reconstruct with much certainty the portion of the
meteorite to which they once belonged: a model of the reconstructed
portion is shown in the case. Two of the fragments, [Sidenote: Pane 4a.]
in other respects fitting perfectly together, are even on the faces
of the junction now coated with a black crust, showing that one
disruption took place when the meteorite had a high velocity; two other
fragments found some miles apart fitted perfectly, and were neither
of them incrusted at the surface of fracture, thus indicating another
disruption at a time when the velocity of the meteorite had been so far
reduced that the material of the new faces was not blackened through
the generation of heat. Sometimes, as in the case of the meteorite of
Orgueil, the fragments reach the ground before the detonation is heard,
proving that the fracture has taken place at a part of the course where
the velocity of the meteorite was considerably greater than that of the
sound-vibrations (1100 feet a second).
[Sidenote: The detonations.]
23. The sudden condensation of air in front of the meteorite, the
consequent generation of heat and expansion of the outer shell, have
been held to account not only for the _break-up_ of the meteorite
into fragments, but partly also for the _crash like that of thunder_
which is a usual accompaniment of the fall. Others have referred this
noise solely to the sudden rush of air into the space traversed by
the meteorite in the early part of the course. It has, however, now
been discovered that the mere flight of a projectile through the air
with a velocity exceeding that of sound (1100 feet a second) is itself
sufficient to cause a loud detonation; neither explosion, like that
of a bomb-shell, nor simple fracture of the meteorite by reason of
pressure or sudden heat, is a necessary preliminary to the production
of the loud noise. It is found, in fact, that when a projectile is
fired with high initial velocity, say 2350 feet a second, an observer
near the path of the projectile begins to distinguish two detonations
as soon as his distance from the cannon reaches 500 feet; the first of
them, a sharp one, appears to come from that part of the projectile's
path which is nearest to the observer, and travels with the velocity
of the projectile; the later and duller one appears to come from
the cannon itself, and travels with the velocity of sound. If the
projectile is intercepted near the cannon, only a single detonation is
heard by an observer in the same position as before, and it travels
at the rate of 1100 feet a second. If the initial velocity of the
projectile is less than that of sound, only a single detonation is
heard, and it starts from the cannon.
The rolling sound, which follows the detonation of a meteorite, is due,
as in the case of thunder, to echoes from the ground and the clouds.