182 Transactions. 



piece of rock of a dark colour, and said that it was obtained from the spot 

 where the meteorite fell. My thanks are due to Mr. Syme for his prompt- 

 ness in letting me know of the fall, for the chances are that if he had failed 

 to do so the stone would have been lost. 



As the rock had all the appearance of a meteorite, I went to Mokoia 

 by the first train on Monday morning. Fortunately for Mokoia, it is only 

 a small station, with a few houses, a church, and a creamery, or else a fair 

 amount of damage might have been done by the meteorite. I went first 

 to Mr. Hawken's homestead, where the meteorite had fallen. He kindly 

 took me to a plantation which surroimded his house, and showed me where 

 the ground had been struck. He himself had heard the whizzing sound, 

 and also the noise made by impact with the earth ; but he did not send the 

 boy to investigate until some time afterwards, so that no evidence is forth- 

 coming as to whether the stone was warm when it reached the earth. 



The spot was not more than two hundred yards from the house, near 

 which the owner's children were playing. 



In its descent it snapped of? a small branch of a fir-tree, and then struck 

 a root that was growing on the surface of the ground. The stone hit the 

 buttress about 29 in. away from the tree, but only struck it half on ; there- 

 fore it skidded off, after splintering the root somewhat, and buried itself 

 in the earth. The hole was only 11 in. deep, 15 in. and 17 in. in diameter. 

 In this cavity Mr. Hawken found the two lumps which are figured, and 

 which are really the whole of the fragments that were found, with the excep- 

 tion of a few pieces which were found scattered around the hole to a dis- 

 tance of some yards. The lump A weighed 5 lb. 3 oz., and the lump B 

 5 lb. 2 oz. ; and both were presented to the Public Museum, Wanganui. 



I cut ofE the root showing the splintered portions, and deposited it, with 

 the portions of the meteorite, in the railway-station. Then, walking for a 

 mile down the line, I came to the spot where the other portion was sup- 

 posed to have fallen. This was on the high, steep banks of the Manawapou 

 Stream, in which a third piece was said to fall. The banks are about 100 ft. 

 or 200 ft. high, and are covered with a dense undergrowth and bush, into 

 which one sank up to the waist at each step. As the day was a rainy one, 

 and the bush sopping, it made travelling very slow, and after half an hour's 

 scramble, during which I did not get very far, I was obliged to get back 

 m order to catch the train, without having seen any signs of the other 

 supposed piece of the aerolite. 



The aerolite seems to have passed over Mokoia, as the descriptions 

 given to me by eye-witnesses all agree that it was directly overhead. As 

 it travelled across the sky, the numerous explosions evidently split some 

 fragments off, and these fell at this spot, while the aerolite proper apparently 

 went out to sea. 



There seems to be some evidence to show that after passing Mokoia the 

 force of the explosions broke the stone into two pieces, as two eye-witnesses 

 say they distinctly saw two streaks of smoke behind the aerolite. This is 

 supported by the fact that at Castlecliff (situated at the mouth of the 

 Wanganui River) a portion at least was seen to fall into the sea with a 

 loud report ; and a number of witnesses who were on the beach state that 

 they saw a flash and the commotion caused by the mass falUng into the 

 sea, and they also heard the loud detonation. 



Now, this place is about forty-two miles south of Mokoia, and, though 

 the angle is too great for the stone to fall into the sea off the Wanganui 



