COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE OF METEORITES 49 



consider the often-reported occurrences of the fall of combustible 

 matter, even though in several of the instances there seems good reason 

 for doubting their absolute authenticity. 



The earliest account to be mentioned is taken from the second 

 American edition of the New Edinburgh Encyclopedia, where it is 

 stated that a meteorite fell near Roa, in Borgus, Spain, in 1438 and 

 was reported to have been of very light material, resembling con- 

 densed sea froth. It is also said in the same publication that after 

 the fall of a fire ball in Lusatia in 1 795 there was found on the ground 

 a viscous substance having the consistency, color, and odor of brown 

 varnish. This was examined by Chladni, who thought it to be com- 

 posed mainly of sulphur and carbon. One of the best authenticated 

 reports of this nature is that in connection with the fall of stones 

 near Hessle in 1869. This was accompanied by a quantity of carbo- 

 naceous matter of a coffee color, in the form both of powder and in 

 masses as large as the hand. When freed from the metallic substance, 

 it was found to consist of: Carbon, 51.6 per cent; hydrogen, 3.8 per 

 cent; oxygen, 15.7 per cent; silica, 16.7 per cent; ferrous oxide, 8.4 

 per cent; magnesia, 1.5 per cent; lime, 0.8 per cent; and soda with 

 traces of lithia, 1.5 per cent. 



M. Meunier,^ under the title "Substance singuliere recueillie k 

 la suite d'un met^ore rapporte a la foudre," described a peculiar 

 resinous substance which was represented to him as having been 

 deposited over the suface of various objects during a violent thunder- 

 shower. The material is largely organic, burning with a resinous 

 odor, and differs from ordinary fulgurite in that it is of the same 

 nature regardless of the substance over which it is deposited, show- 

 ing at once that it is not derived by direct fusion. Meunier ex- 

 pressed a doubt as to whether or not the material is the effect of a 

 thunderbolt. 



In the same volume,^ A. Tracul takes up the matter and claims 

 that the material is really a product of meteoric conditions, and says 

 that during a shower on the 25th of August, 1880, he saw issuing 

 from a black cloud a luminous body, very brilliant, slightly yellow- 

 ish but almost white, of an elongated form with the two tips in the 

 form of briefly attenuated cones. This body remained visible dur- 

 ing the brief time and then it disappeared, reentering the cloud, but 

 as it disappeared, there separated from it a small quantity of material 

 which fell vertically downward, as a heavy body under the influence 

 of gravity. It left behind it a luminous train, the edges of which 

 were manifestly reddish, sparkling globules. These, in the latter 

 part of their course, fell nearly vertically. Although none of this 



« Comptes Rendus, vol. 103, 1886, p. 837. 

 ' Idem, p. 848. 



