THE MUSEUM. 



A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Research in Natural Science. 



Vol. III. 



ALBION, N. Y., JANUARY 15, 1897. 



No. 3; 



Notes from the Mohawk's 

 Country. 



p. M. VAN EPPS. 



(XII.) 



.■\rdvane's disappointment. 



"Was it a golden lance, 



Into the silence hurled 

 By the spirit of air V a new-born star ? 



Or the wreck of a world ?" 



— Lair/hton. 



Or was it but an earth-born mass, 



A boulder rude, transported here 

 In ancient days by glacial power 

 ;From parent ledge o'er land and meer v 



Ardvane the yokel was plowing for 

 oats on his grandmother's four-acre 

 field of boulder clay. He had finished 

 six lands and reached the dead-furrow 

 of the seventh, whose upturned, glist- 

 ening ridges lay steaming under the 

 hot sun. The nigh horse was wallow- 

 ing in the freshly plowed soil, helping 

 drag the heavy plow, when — bang ! 

 went the chilled share against some 

 hidden obstruction, bringing up the 

 weary team of castor-marked nags 

 with a jerk that made the whiffletrees 

 crack. 



Now this was no uncommon event; 

 "just another one of them," thought 

 Ardvane, and with a grim determina- 

 tion to root that boulder from its an- 

 cient resting-place he dextrously tipped 

 the heavy Syracuse plow, catching the 

 point of its share against the stone. 

 As the team slowly started there came 

 from the rising stone an air-sucking 

 "oof" of protestation at being disturb- 

 ed in its long rest. But a louder 

 noise came from Ardvane, who, on 

 catching sight of the rust}' old rock, at 



once set up a tremendous shout and 

 writhing himself clear from the encir- 

 cling tied lines, which were flung to 

 the dirt, sprang at the boulder and 

 soon had it lying free on top of the 

 loose soil. 



A rusty, brownish, angular mass it 

 was, weighing, perhaps, two hundred 

 pounds, very different in color and 

 shape from its fellows, so numerous in 

 that boulder-bestrewn tract. Could it 

 be possible that here was at last that 

 long-sought-for meteorite .' 



Yes, it must be so, — the proper col- 

 or, a rusty brown, shading from red to 

 black; that pitted, angular surface so 

 different from the roundness of the 

 common glacier-pounded boulder; just 

 such an angular configuration as Ard- 

 vane remembered the meteorites hav- 

 ing that he had seen in certain public 

 museums of note — yes, without any 

 doubt it was a meteorite. 



What a treasure I a meteorite weigh- 

 ing nearly two hundred pounds! Would 

 it show the widmanstaetten markings 

 if divided, etched and polished.' 



It has been estimated that the earth 

 meets over 7,000,000 of these meteor- 

 ic bodies every day, in size from the 

 smallest atom to masses of consider- 

 able weight, and from the density of 

 gas to solid iron. The larger portion 

 are consumed by fervent heat gener- 

 ated by their lightning-like passage 

 through our atmosphere, and nothing 

 remains or reaches the surface but a 

 trace of meteoric dust, except possibly 

 a part of the gas generated by the 

 combustion. These are the ever-fall- 

 ing "shooting-stars." Occasionally 

 there enters our atmosphere one of 

 these wanderers of a size and density 



