WILLAMETTE METEORITE. 145 



seek a different cause and a different mode of action. This is not 

 difficult to find. It has been seen that this meteorite lay in 

 its original bed, as it fell, with the conical end down, and the flat 

 base upwards and quite level ; that it lay just below the surface 

 of the ground in a soil highly charged throughout with vegetable 

 matter, the accumulation of centuries under the falling leaves and 

 branches of a primeval forest. Finally we remember that western 

 Oregon is a region marked as a rain-belt ever since it has been 

 known at all. Every condition was favorable to the decomposition of 

 this great mass of iron, so situated that its surface was ever soaked 

 with abundant water, and that water was heavily charged with car- 

 bonic acid, due to vegetable decomposition Under such conditions 

 the oxidation of the mass would go on rapidly. The depressions 

 would soon be initiated; these would fill with water, and thenceforth 

 the work of dissolution of the mass would go on rapidly and with ever 

 increasing area of surface and power of action. This is an action in 

 uhich there has been no intermittence and no minimizing; for while 

 the frosts of the short winter may ha've for a time yearly lessened the 

 chemical action, the increased mechanical effects of freezing and 

 thawing would have quite compensated in accomplishing the destruc- 

 tive work. It is especially noticeable in studying these caverns how 

 certain portions of the surface of the mass have been left unaffected, 

 holding to-day not only the original superficial level, but also retain- 

 ing in fullest degree the pittings and all other markings which the 

 mass had when at close of its flight it reached its bed. These areas 

 of original surface stand as islands in the waste depressions of decom- 

 position; and in the majority of cases the decomposition which has 

 made the caverns, has also undermined these intervening areas. 

 These latter thus stand on pedestals or bases which are hour-glass in 

 form, dwindling from top downwards and from below up. Thus it 

 occurs that many of the round borings noticed before and which are 

 so prominent a feature in the view of the base of the meteorite now 

 pass quite through with a short passage from the old surface into the 

 latter formed basin or cavern. Incidentally we may mention that the 

 corroding progress of this decomposition has eaten -holes, usually 

 quite irregular in shape and often large in diameter, through the walls 

 between the several basins. No less than ten of these, varying from 

 two to eight inches in diameter, may be counted. The most casual 

 view of the sides and bottom of these basins show the entire differ- 

 ence of surface texture between them and thfe inside of the great 



