78 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



of fertilisation is better explained, for the plant is al- 

 together too large for hive-bees. If this is so, clearly it 

 is only fair to make bumble-bees fertilise the flower, and 

 therefore it ought to be blue ; but as if nature consi- 

 dered the supplying of bumble-bees alone not sufficient, 

 the flower is red with spots on the labellum to feed 

 flies. Anyone who has cultivated the orchis must have 

 noticed the flies at work using their stopper-like 

 proboscides, yet doing no good. Spiders soon find 

 out how attractive the orchis is to flies. For it is a 

 wonderful thing that the labellum, fauces, and nectary 

 are all covered with minute papillae, and the nectary 

 on the lower surface only, which is splendidly adapted 

 to flies. The flattened and wider end of the nectary 

 enables the bee to sweep his proboscis to and fro, 

 and thus the papillae can be mown down, a motion 

 well suited to rupture the rostellum. The white 

 variety must be, according to Grant Allen, not so 

 highly developed as the red, a fact which is borne 

 out by the retrogradation noticed above. The 

 flowers have a peculiar foxy odour in the red, whereas 

 the white ones are scentless. 



The seed, which is produced in countless abun- 

 dance, but does not germinate in one season, and 

 only under most favourable conditions, is contained 

 in capsules opening in three valves. The capsules 

 are the same as the ovary, the inner surface of which 

 (placenta.) has three separate ovule-masses attached 

 at the sides, parietal. Every single seed is enclosed 

 in a fine muslin case of fantastic shape, sometimes re- 

 sembling a lady's scent-bottle, a horse-pistol, a stock- 

 ing, a soda-water bottle, &c. Out of 50,000 seeds, 

 perhaps one succeeds in bringing a plant to perfection. 



The matter for consideration suggested by this 

 paper is various, and I am not aware that it has 

 appeared before. Whether correct or not, I shall be 

 most interested in learning. At any rate, an attempt 

 has been made to locate the common orchis' sphere 

 of usefulness in nature. 



FLUID CAVITIES IN METEORITES. 



YOUR correspondent T. advises H. M. to submit 

 his meteoric sections to a " competent judge" 

 of meteorites, in order to settle the question of their 

 genuineness. Will he be good enough to furnish me 

 with the names of a few of these competent judges ? I 

 am not aware of the existence of a single individual who 

 may in any sense be termed an authority on meteorites. 

 The study of meteorites is not only in its infancy, 

 but it cannot even as yet be called an organised 

 science, for it presents no clear and defined rules on 

 which we could base an inquiry, and I may safely 

 add that there is little probability that the immediate 

 future will augment our information. The sum total 

 of our knowledge of meteorites amounts at best to a 

 mere record of the discovery and analysis (the latter 

 not always exhaustive) of a very limited number of 

 fragments or blocks of material, which have been 



either witnessed in the act of falling upon the surface 

 of our planet, or which, by comparison with such 

 authenticated specimens, are presumed to be of extra- 

 terrestrial origin. 



But the investigation of afl the meteorites and 

 supposed meteorites in our museums and private 

 collections has not yet enabled the leading scientists 

 to lay down a single hard and fast rule for testing a 

 specimen, or to furnish a satisfactory answer to the 

 question : " What are the essential and characteristic 

 features of a meteorite ? " It was at one time sup- 

 posed that the presence of metallic iron constituted 

 a convincing proof of the meteoric origin of a speci- 

 men, but that belief has received its deathblow since 

 Professor Nordenskjold has discovered huge iron 

 masses in Greenland, whose origin has been clearly 

 demonstrated to be terrestrial, masses in which the 

 metallic iron is even alloyed with those two other 

 metals, nickel and cobalt, which form so characteristic 

 a feature in the iron of meteorites, giving rise to the 

 so-called Widtmanstetten-figures, which appear on 

 treating a polished surface with acids. Metallic iron 

 has also been discovered in microscopical quantities 

 in various basalts and other basic lavas, and Professor 

 Judd, in his interesting work on volcanoes, states that 

 masses, bearing the most striking resemblance to 

 meteorites, and being composed of substances identical 

 with those which constitute the latter, are sometimes 

 ejected from volcanic vents in the shape of so-called 

 volcanic bombs. These discoveries have practically 

 extinguished the validity of the old convenient 

 method of testing meteorites, and the foremost in- 

 quirers have become very careful and guarded in 

 their language. The fallacy of all previous reasoning 

 is obvious. If we consider the countless myriads of 

 meteorites which are known to traverse space (the 

 swarms of shooting-stars and even comets have been 

 identified with streams of minute planetary bodies, 

 moving in regular orbits through the solar system), 

 these countless myriads which most probably present 

 a vaster diversity of mineral combination in the 

 aggregate than exists on this globe'; and if, on the 

 other hand, we consider the isolated few which have 

 happened to fall on the earth— it appears an absurdity 

 if, from the accidental composition of the latter, we 

 were to determine what is possible and what is not 

 possible in a meteorite. 



So much for the value of the assertion that the 

 meteorite of Braunfels cannot be a meteorite, because 

 it differs in appearance from most known meteorites. 



I repeat that the investigation, especially the 

 microscopic investigation, of meteorites is quite in its 

 infancy yet, and I doubt whether (with the exception 

 of Dr. Sorby, perhaps) there is a single individual in 

 this country capable of pronouncing an opinion on 

 this complicated subject. 



Sections of the meteorite of Braunfels have been 

 submitted to Dr. Sorby months ago, and the 

 "paper" referred to by your other correspondent, 



