196 CENTURY OF STUDY OF METEORITES. 



stones are estimated to have fallen, their total weight reaching over 

 400 pounds. In the shower at Mocs, Germany, in 18S2, more than 

 3,000 stones fell. In our own country about 750 pounds of meteoric 

 matter fell at Estherville, Iowa, in 1879, and several thousand stones 

 fell over an area i) miles in length and 1 mile wide near Forest City, 

 Iowa, in 1890. Many of these falls have been marked by extraordi- 

 nary phenomena of light and sound, making them events never to be 

 forgotten by those who witnessed them and worthy to be reckoned 

 among the most remarkable natural occurrences of the century. 

 About 285 actually observed meteoric falls is the total recorded 

 during the century. It is a remarkable fact regarding the nature of 

 the material fallen that only 5 of these have been of meteoric irons. 

 One of these irons fell at Mazapil, Mexico, during the star shower of 

 November, 1885, at the time when the return of Biela's comet was 

 looked for, and was thus considered an occurrence corroborative of 

 the already suspected relationship among comets, shooting stars, and 

 meteorites. 



The indifference to the collecting of meteorites which characterized 

 the earl}' part of the century has given place in its latter days to an 

 extraordinar}^ diligence in the search for these bodies. One meteorite 

 has of late acquired a value equal to four times its weight in gold, and 

 several can lie sold for two and three times their weight b}^ the gold 

 standard. The meteorite collection of the Natural History Museum in 

 Vienna has for many 3^ears been the leading one. What it has cost to 

 build it up may be known from the fact that it is considered the most 

 valuable of any single collection in that great treasure house. Repre- 

 sentatives of over 500 meteoric falls are exhibited in this (collection, 

 and the meteoric matter has a total weight of 7 tons. The collection 

 of the British Museum of Natural History is nearly as large, while at 

 Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Calcutta, together with Washington, 

 Chicago, Cambridge, and New HaA'en, in our own country, are gathered 

 extensive and important collections. The establishment of such large 

 collections has for the first time put the study of meteorites on a sat- 

 isfactory basis and given lively hope that important truths will be 

 discovered ])y researches thus made possible. The general similarity 

 of the stony meteorites to the basic volcanic rocks of the earth has 

 been established, and similarity of many physical structures such as 

 brecciation, slicken-sided surfaces, and veins has been proved. The 

 chondritic structure and the crystalline structure represented b}'^ the 

 Widmanstatten figures are, however, so far as is yet knowni, peculiar 

 to meteorites, and it will remain for the twentieth century to discover 

 what these structures mean. Classifications of meteorites based on 

 their mineralogical and structural characters have been estalilished, 

 and important diiieronces among meteorites shown, in spite of their 

 family resemblances. It would be idle perhaps to recount, as might 



