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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Cuernavaca, Mexico, Section of Ikon showing Figures. 



securing meteorites, and the details of falls, their date and locality, the 

 comparison of types of meteorites, their mineralogical components arid 

 their many physical peculiarities have been so carefully recorded and 

 studied that a special science has resulted, and a special group of 

 students, whose rivalry is more animated than that generally discovered 

 elsewhere amongst collectors of one kind of natural object. 



The collection and the collector of meteorites have, with few excep- 

 tions, been features of the nineteenth century only. Previous to that 

 these wonderful objects elicited surprise, and perhaps superstitious 

 regard. Only within the nineteenth century did their careful com- 

 parison and study begin. All such collections as the great cabinets of 

 Vienna, London, Paris, Berlin and the many smaller ones distributed 

 through Europe have been slowly formed, the actual supply of material 

 being dependent on meteorological incident and the results of travel 

 and observation. In America, the larger collections at Yale, Harvard, 





Bacurbito, Side View. 



