898 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [DeC, 



face of which both rocks and meteoric material are much more frequent 

 than in the substance of the rim below, is itself a concentration of 

 material like the present rim, below the rock cover, of mixed silica 

 powder and rock, from which the silica powder has been washed away 

 until the accumulated rock cover, and probably the decreasing rainfall 

 of the country, has preserved the rim now remaining beneath this rock 

 cover in its present form. Also, upon the accident as to whether or 

 not there was a strong wind blowing at the time of the formation of the 

 hole would determine w^hether or not a great portion of the fine powder 

 produced ever settled on or around the rim at all. Hence, in the opin- 

 ion of the author, the deficiency in the contents of the present rim to 

 fill the existing hole, and this fact is also a valid objection to the use 

 of their comparative bulks as having any bearing whatever upon the 

 probability of the wreck of the great meteorite lying beneath the bot- 

 tom of the hole. 



The Traces of the Luminous Tail of the Great Meteor. 



It occurred to the author that if the meteoric theory of the formation 

 of this crater was correct, such a projectile falling through the atmo- 

 sphere at the requisite speed must have been surrounded by the usual 

 luminous tail always accompanying such objects. And that as no me- 

 teoric material except nickel-iron and magnetite containing nickel had 

 been found in the vicinity, it was a fair deduction that the surface of 

 such meteorite, if it ever existed, was of nickel-iron, and that the lu- 

 minous tail in such case must have consisted of atomized particles of 

 incandescent magnetite. Pursuant to this idea a search for this mate- 

 rial was made with magnets about the locality, and it was found that 

 its presence w^as absolutely universal over the whole locality inside the 

 hole and out for as far as observed, somewhat over two miles from the 

 hole. It consists of a blackish-gray rather fine-grained powder, strongly 

 attractable by the magnet, crystalline in structure, but not at all so 

 in shape, being in small torn irregular masses with generally intensely 

 fine grains of silica powder adhering so firmly to its surface as to sug- 

 gest adhesion wdiile in a state of fusion. Of very rare occurrence 

 among it are absolutely round balls with a fused polished surface like 

 intensely fine shot. These, it is supposed, have had time to solidify 

 in the vacuum behind the flying meteor free from the fierce rush of air 

 that had solidified the usual grain in any shape whatever, and they 

 were enabled thus to assume the usual shape of liquid drops. 



With considerable labor enough of these particles were collected 

 for analysis, and they were found to contain nickel in but little less 



