METEORITES FOUIiTD IN SEAMS OF COAL. 



319 



these -bodies, many without irom will doubtless be met with. 

 So tliere is nothing in the composition of the stones de- 

 scribed in this paper to prevent them from being considered 

 as meteoric, even supposing that such bodies which fell to 

 the earth in so remote an age as the carboniferous strata, 

 ^ete exactly similar in their nature to those which visit the 

 earth at the present time— a supposition not very probable. 



Scarcely any of the strata of the earth, in England at least, 

 have been so thoroughly explored as the valuable seams of 

 coal, which have contributed so largely to our national re- 

 Boiirces; and therefore it is in those strata that we should 

 certainly look with the greatest probability for finding 

 ancient meteoric stones. Also, as Sir Charles Lyell has 

 observed in the preceding quotation, in his remarks on 

 fossil meteorites, it is not the masses of iron which fell in 

 the waters of the ancient globe that we should expect to 

 find preserved in the strata, but rather sttch stones as we 

 have previously described, consisting nearly altogether of 

 silica, and, therefore, capable of resisting the decomposing 

 'agents, which metallic iron, and many other bodies, would 

 be nearly incapable of enduring. The rare occurrence of 

 «uch bodies as the stones before described in seams of coal, 

 may, with propriety, be adduced in attributing them to 

 ^ome extraordinaiy cause rather than the eft'ects of currents 

 ■of water, and their transport by the roots and branches o£ 

 trees. 



The shape of the three specimens, the specific gravities and 

 chemical composition, do not prove much either for ot 

 against their being considered as meteorites ; for if the seams 

 of coal in which they were found had been formed of drifted 

 karees, as was formerly the favourite hypothesis for accouirt- 

 iBg for the origin of coal, the stones might be taken for 

 travelled pieces of quartzose stone, equally with the drifted 

 vegetables; but each of the seams in which they occurred 

 (and they were found in the middle of the beds), is placed on 



