HANDBOOK OF THE METEORITE COLLECTIONS. 25 



the speed of the fireballs which passed over the Ohio and Mississippi 

 Valleys in August, 1860, at 30 to 35 miles a second, and stated ^ that 

 the Stannern, Moravia, stone came into our atmosphere with a ve- 

 locity of 45 miles a second. These higher velocities are, doubtless, 

 those of bodies pursuing a retrograde course about the sun. 



The evidence afforded by actual falls and impacts is extremely 

 contradictory. Nordenskiold states that, in the case of the Hessle 

 fall, stones so friable as to be readily broken if simply thrown 

 against a hard surface were not broken or even scarred on striking 

 the frozen ground. Stones weighing several poimds which struck 

 on ice a few inches in thickness rebounded without breaking the ice 

 or being themselves broken. The 70-pound stone that fell at Alle- 

 gan, Michigan, in 1899, penetrated the sandy soil to a depth of about 

 18 inches and was itself considerably shattered. Like that of Hessle, 

 this was an unusually frip.ble stone. It is evident that its speed did 

 not exceed that of a projectile from an old-time piece of heavy ord- 

 nance. The 260-pound stone that fell at Ensisheim, Germany, in 

 1492, is reported to have buried itself to a depth of 5 feet. 



The greatest depth of penetration of a meteoric stone which has 

 come under the writer's observation is that of Knyahinya, Hungary, 

 as described by Haidinger. In this instance a 660-pound stone, 

 striking the ground at an angle of some 27° from the vertical, pene- 

 trated to a depth of 11 feet. The hole was nearly circular in outline, 

 and fragments from the interior were thrown back and scattered to 

 a distance of some 180 feet {dreiszig Klafter). The stone was found 

 broken in three pieces, and the earth beneath it compacted to stony 

 hardness. 



On the other hand, still heavier masses have been found under 

 such conditions as to lead one to infer they scarcely buried them- 

 selves. Peary's giant Cape York iron, weighing 37^ tons, was found 

 only partially covered; but, as it lay on a bed of gneissic bowlders, 

 this is not strange. It should be remarked, however, that an exami- 

 nation of the iron reveals no such abrasions of surface as might be 

 expected had it fallen with a speed of miles per second, or, indeed, 

 any abrasions whatever that can be ascribed to such a cause. It is, 

 of course, possible that this fall took place when the ground was 

 deeply covered with ice and snow, and its speed was thus checked 

 before coming in contact with the stony matter.^ 



The Willamette iron, weighing 15.6 tons, seemingly lay without 

 question as it originally fell, and in a region of no appreciable ero- 

 sion — rather, one of organic deposition, for it was found lying in a 



1 Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 36, 1888, p. H. 



2 It is stated that lead bullets from a modern rifle may be completely checked in 

 traversing a few feet of light snow, and this, too, without the slightest appreciable 

 deformation or surface abrasion. 



