MERRILL — SCHUCHERT 631 



square miles of the fjrouiul about the crater; in number they run 

 into the thousands and in weight from 1 gram up to 1,013 pounds. 



Merrill concludes from the shape, size, and ejected material of 

 Meteor Crater that the evidence points strongly "to an origin by 

 impact. It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of the smashing 

 and mctamorphibm of the sandstone on any other ground. The sand 

 grains are crushed in a manner tiiat coukl be brought about only by 

 some sudden shock. . . . The fused quartz indicates great heat. . . . 

 The slightly disturbed and unchanged condition of the deeper-lying 

 sandstones seems to prove the superficial character of the phe- 

 nomena." The higher strata dip downward " as though forced out 

 of position by some power acting from above." The in fall of mete- 

 oritic material "seems worthy of serious consideration." (1908a: 

 489^90.) 



The place of vieteantes in the solar system. — Students of mete- 

 orites are now all agreed that they are celestial bodies fallen on our 

 earth. Farrington is inclined to regard the meteorites as " portions 

 of extraterrestrial bodies," in other words, as " fragments of some 

 pre-existing body rather than independent celestial bodies." (Me- 

 teorites, their Structure, Composition, and Terrestrial Relations, 

 1915:211.) 



According to T. C. Chamberlin, the meteorites are all independ- 

 ent members of the solar family, originating out of the sun when it 

 was interfered with by a far larger intruding star. This approach 

 caused mother sun to give birth to her very numerous family of 

 planets and their satellites, to the erratic comets, to the meteorites, 

 and to the chondrules to which alone Chamberlin restricts the popu- 

 lar term " shooting stars." The careful student must clearly keep 

 in mind that Chamberlin regards planctesimals and chondrules as 

 the world-making stuff born of the sun. The planctesimals " re- 

 volve concurrently in a narrow disk and are thereby fitted to collect 

 into planets"; while the widely sweeping chondrules are not so re- 

 stricted, and gathering into swarms remain discrete and compose the 

 heads of the very erratic comets; the other chondrules, revolving 

 close about the sun, gather into the meteorites and are from time to 

 time more or less completely fused or metamorphosed. (The Two 

 Solar Families, 1928.) 



MERRILL AS PIONEER HISTORIAN OF NORTH AMERICAN PHYSICAL GEOLOGY 



It was but natural that, in his position as head curator in the 

 United States National Museum, i^Ierrill should have to know some- 

 thing of the connections, education, and career of his colleagues and 

 his predecessors, and in his administrative work it was often neces- 

 sary for him to look uj) the records of the early Government surveys 



