320 ME. E. W. BINNEY ON SOME SUPPOSED METEORITES, &c. 



a floor full of stigmariae roots, thus affording conclusive 

 proof that the plants of which the seams were formed grew 

 upon the spots where they are now found. 



The crust of the specimens, consisting of only a few 

 tenths of a line in thickness, of a shining black lustre, and 

 so sharply defined from the light gray mass of the stone 

 beneath, is the strongest evidence of their being meteorites. 

 This is the peculiar character of meteorites, so forcibly 

 alluded to by Humboldt in the quotation previously given. 

 The black colour of the stones might certainly have been 

 derived from the decomposing vegetable matter in which 

 they have been so long enveloped; but it is very remarkable 

 that the colouring matter should have penetrated so slightly 

 into the body of the stone. An ordinary pebble of quartz, 

 after only a few years' immersion in black mud, composed 

 of decaying vegetable matter, would be much more dis- 

 coloured in depth than the specimens in question, which 

 have lain for countless ages; and the present slight coating 

 of the latter can only be attributed to their outsides having 

 been subjected to the action of great heat, and thus so 

 vitrified as to prevent the colouring matter from entering 

 into the body of the stones before they came amongst the 

 vegetable matter now forming coal. 



Nothing is more difficult than to establish, without 

 question, the meteoric character of a stone. For ages 

 doubts were thrown even on those specimens which were 

 seen to fall from the heavens, and were actually found in a 

 hot state. With fossil meteorites still greater difficulties 

 occur; and the specimens described in this paper can only 

 be considered as such bodies, by their resemblance in their 

 characters to recent meteorites, and by their being found 

 in a position where it is more probable to suppose they 

 came through the atmosphere, than by currents of water, or 

 any other ordinary cause. 



