COLLECTION OF METEORITES 23 



Amherst and Washing-ton were very gradually brought together. There 

 was no concentrated effort made to extend them ; the scientific thought 

 of the last century, except towards its close, had not keenly awakened 

 to a realization of the almost marvelous connotations implied in these 

 strange aerial vagrants, and the opportunities for their discovery had 

 not been actually availed of. 



Xo one in the United States has exhibited greater perseverance and 

 a more boundless, almost reckless, enthusiasm in this work of col- 

 lecting meteorites than Professor Henry A. Ward. His audacity and 

 zeal have gone hand in hand with a very keen scientific sense of the 

 meaning of meteorites, and an admirable acquaintance with the liter- 

 ature and the results that have developed in their study. 



He has himself been an explorer in this field, and it would be safe 

 to predict his first arrival* at the scene of any new meteorite's fall 

 to-day. His correspondence is extensive, and the merest mention of 

 a meteorite occurrence flies to his desk, and is very quickly subjected to 

 his pertinacious system of verification or exposure. 



The Ward-Coonley collection of meteorites now exhibited at the 

 American Museum of Natural History represents his tireless work 

 through many years, and stands to-day first amongst the collections of 

 meteorites in this country. In the possession of large, unique masses, 

 other collections may at points excel it, but in its representative charac- 

 ter and in the actual number of ' falls,' it surpasses all others. The 

 reader unacquainted with the peculiar pride of meteorite collectors 

 may, perchance, welcome a little elucidation. 



Meteorites are named from the locality in which they fall, or are 

 found. But few meteorites have ever been seen to fall, and hence the 

 meteorite mass, when discovered, is given a name (by which it is ever 

 afterwards distinguished) that is derived from its exact locality or 

 neighborhood. Thus Canon Diablo, Arizona, Mincy Taney Co., Mo., 

 Brenham, Kansas, Mocs, Transylvania, Estherville, Emmet Co., Iowa, 

 are familiar labels in these collections. These designations sometimes 

 of necessity assume a curious character, as the Vaca Muerta meteorite, 

 or ' dead cow,' so named in the desert of Atacama, Chili, from its 

 proximity to the corpse of that quadruped, the only, or at least a stri- 

 king, physical feature in an otherwise featureless waste. Such a name 

 remains after its origin has disappeared. 



A certain number of localities, however, have frequently proved to be 

 but representative of a prolonged fall. A meteorite mass, meeting the 

 atmosphere of our earth, becomes, through friction, enormously heated, 

 disruption takes place, and the separated parts, instead of falling at 

 one spot, are dropped in succession at widely removed points, and thus 

 a series of names becomes synonymous. Long examination and careful 

 comparison, such, for instance, as Fletcher, of the British Museum, has 



