90 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



carbon. They are pronounced by Berthelot, who 

 has submitted some of the material to the most 

 powerful oxidizing reagents, to resemble the form 

 of carbon which separates from cast-iron on cool- 

 ing rather than native graphite. 



1864. May lith, 8 p. m. — On this occasion 

 more than twenty stones fell at Montauban, Tarn- 

 et-Garonne, France, some of them being as large 

 as a human head, and most of them smaller than 

 a fist. The appearance which this meteorite ex- 

 hibits closely resembles that of a dull-colored 

 earthy lignite. The masses are black and very 

 friable, and fall to powder when placed in water; 

 this is due to the removal of the soluble salts 

 which cement the ingredients together. A shower 

 of rain would have destroyed them. One hundred 

 parts of this stone contain 5.92 parts of carbon 

 itself, partly as a constituent of one organic com- 

 pound, which Cloiiz found to possess the follow- 

 ing composition : 



Carbon 63.45 



Hydrogen 5.98 



Oxygen 30.57 



100.00 



Berthelot endeavored to reconstruct the body 

 of which this is a decomposed product by means 

 of hydriodic acid, and obtained a considerable 

 quantity of the hydrocarbon C 2tl H 2n +2 analogous 

 to rock-oil. The reduction takes place less readi- 

 ly in this case than in that of coal. Dr. Lawrence 

 Smith finds the combustible portion of the ma- 

 terial to amount to about 4.5 per cent. 



1867. — This Indian meteorite, which fell at 

 Goalpara about the year 1867 (the exact date is 

 not known), was examined by Tschermak, who 

 found it to contain 0.85 per cent, of a hydrocar- 

 bon. The quantity, though small, materially 

 affects the general appearance of the stone ; it 

 can be recognized under the microscope as a 

 smoky-brown, lustreless ingredient accompanying 

 the fragments of nickel-iron. Of the 0.85 per 

 cent. 0.72 is carbon and 0.13 hydrogen. Tscher- 

 mak suggests that the luminous phenomena so 

 often attending the fall of an aerolite and the 

 " tail " left by many meteors and shooting-stars 

 may be due to the combustion of compounds of 

 which carbon forms an important constituent. 



1868. July 11th. — The curious meteorite of 

 dull gray hue and loose structure which fell on 

 this day at Ornans, Doubs, France, partly owes 

 its durk color to the presence of a hydrocarbon. 



1869. January 1st, 12.20 p.m. — A most re- 

 markable fall of stones took place on New-Year's- 

 day, 1869, at Hessle, near Upsala; it is the first 

 aerolitic shower recorded to have taken place in 



Sweden. The meteorites have so loose a structure 

 that they break in pieces when thrown with the 

 hand against the floor or frozen ground. The most 

 interesting feature of the Hessle fall is the asso- 

 ciation, with the stones referred to, of matter 

 mainly composed of carbon. The peasants of 

 Hessle noticed that some of the meteorites which 

 fell on the snow near Arno soon crumbled to a 

 blackish-brown powder resembling coffee-grounds. 

 Similar powder was found on the ice at Hafslavi- 

 ken in masses as large as the hand, which float- 

 ed on water like foam, and could not be held 

 between the fingers. A small amount secured 

 for examination was found under the microscope 

 to be composed of small spherules ; it contained 

 particles extractible by the magnet, and when 

 ignited left a reddish-brown ash. Heated in a 

 closed tube it gave a small brown distillate. A 

 quantity dried at 110° C. possessed the following 

 composition : 



Carbon 51.6 



Hydrogen 3 8 



Oxygen (calculated) 15.7 



Silicic acid ...... 16.7 



Iron protoxide 8.4 



Magnesia 1.5 



Lime 0.8 



Soda and lithia 1.5 



100.0 



The combustible ingredient appears to have 

 the composition ?iC 9 H 4 2 . It was noticed on 

 this occasion that the stones found in the same 

 district with the carbonaceous substance were, 

 as a rule, quite round and covered on all sides 

 with a black, dull, and often almost sponge-like 

 crust. The iron particles on the surface of the 

 smaller stones were usually quite bright and un- 

 oxidized, as though the stone had been heated in 

 a reducing atmosphere. Nordenskjold, who ex- 

 amined them, expresses the belief that this car- 

 bon compound frequently, perhaps invariably, 

 occurs in association with the meteorites, and he 

 attributes its preservation in this case to the fall 

 of the stones on snow-covered ground. 



1870. — During this year the Swedish Arctic 

 Expedition discovered in the basalt of Ovifak, 

 near Godhavn, island of Disko, Greenland, some 

 enormous metallic masses which are generally 

 regarded as blocks of meteoric iron. Like me- 

 teoric iron, they contain nickel and cobalt, but 

 unlike that iron, they are but slightly attacked by 

 hydrochloric acid. The metal, moreover, when 

 heated, evolves more than one hundred times its 

 volume of a gas which burns with a pale-blue 

 flame and is carbonic oxide mixed with a little 

 carbonic acid ; after this treatment the substance 



