144 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



the meteorite, argues strongly for their origin being due to pre-exis- 

 tent troilite cylindroid nodules. The inner trend of some of these 

 bores is quite irregular, and the surface roughened with sharp, tortu- 

 ous ridges. Some few of the holes join each other below, anastomos- 

 ing, as may sometimes be seen in sections of long troilite nodules in 

 the face of a section of siderite. In the frequency of these long 

 round holes and their general distribution over all sides of the mass, 

 our present meteorite quite resembles, though it surpasses in this 

 feature. Canon Diablo. 



But our attention is strongly drawn away from these aerial 

 features, to so call these effects which were created and completed by 

 the attrition and erosion of the mass as it flew through our atmos- 

 phere in its fall to our earth. For we have before us, as shown in 

 plates 16 and 17, and plate 15, figure 2, a most singular and astonishing 

 group of concavities and caverns. Nothing can exceed the laby- 

 rinthine and chaotic outspread of these. They cross the mass from 

 side to side and end to end. Yet they have no regularity of distribu- 

 tion or system of allineation. They make a confusion of kettle-holes ; 

 of wash-bowls ; of small bath-tubs ! One of the latter, crossing the 

 mass diagonally, is three feet long by ten to fifteen inches across, 

 and with an average depth of sixteen inches. Another, nearly circu- 

 lar, is two and one-sixth ft. in diameter and eighteen inches in deepest 

 part. This one is quadrifid in its bottom ; each of the four areas- 

 being a distinct basin, swelling gently up from its center to the sharp 

 crest running between it and its neighbors. Plate 17, giving 

 views of either end of the mass, show well the depth and the scooped 

 appearance of these caverns. The rim of the meteorite on one side 

 has been broken into by their continuation outwards. Plate 17, figure 

 I, shows how one channel passes through, opening a hole from one 

 side of the great mass to the other. To describe these caverns indi- 

 vidually would be impractical as well as useless. We recognize at 

 once that we are not treating of an ordinary meteorite phenomenon. 

 We are observing an action or effect of decotuposition, carried to its 

 most extreme degree. We are reminded of the deeply water- worn sur- 

 faces of limestone in certain caves. Of eroded blocks of gypsum ; 

 or, most of all, of the cragged protuberances of old coral rock. These 

 excavations in our vieieorite ate clearly aue to the action of water. This 

 has not been an erosion, as have been the deep holes and channels of 

 the other side of ihe mass. There are here no lines of flow, no con- 

 nections in the nature or the trend of the depressions. We have to 



