320 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



The lively interest in the visitors to our solar realm which have 

 come to us has aroused numerous other investigators to take a stand 

 as to the origin of meteorites. Goldschmidt applies his " Komplikation 

 law," which he has been able to prove in crystalline forms and musical 

 harmony — also to harmony in space — and relegates the formation of 

 meteorites to the time of the separation of the moon from the earth's 

 sphere, at which time neither moon nor earth absorbed all the dis- 

 rupted material, the residuals being condensed into drops which now 

 probably run their course as meteorites around the earth and are 

 called cosmolites. 



Svante Arrhenius, in a very recent work, puts the origin of meteor- 

 ites into the realm of nebula or nebulous stars beyond our solar sys- 

 tem. He considers that the little particles separated out by the suns 

 through ray pressure meet in space and collect into aggregates of 

 cosmic dust or meteor stones. The stony aggregates not falling upon 

 the other worlds form a kind of haze, which is the reason that the 

 largest part of the sky between the stars is dark. 



If we recall the differences mentioned by Tschermak between shoot- 

 ing stars and meteorites, then the results of the investigation of the 

 American astronomer, W. J. Pickering, give strength to the hypo- 

 thesis of Tschermak, since he has found that the courses of the shoot- 

 ing stars and meteorites have different fall curves and the meteorites 

 form a girdle like the asteroids. He recognizes in the stony meteor- 

 ites similar orbits to those of the planets. On the other hand, they 

 are conceived by Goldschmidt as products of separation at the time 

 of the formation of the moon, while the meteoric irons, moving with 

 a greater velocity, are relegated to the comets. 



If we pass in review the changing opinions of the century regard- 

 ing the origin of meteorites, we shall without hesitation grant to 

 them the right of membership in our solar system. We shall con- 

 sider their stellar origin and their coming in irora strange worlds as 

 improbable, and shall marvel at them according to their constitution 

 and their forms as broken bits of a world body destroyed by volcanic 

 events. 



