GREAT METEORITE COLLECTIONS. l6l 



bearing all the features which it acquired by the way, however 

 trivial some of these may be. It seems to be more a unit, and that 

 we have everything which it ever taught. This feeling, which is 

 very often an exaggerated one, has some moiety of merit. It is 

 certainly a distinct loss when the surface has been rudely marred 

 or chipped here and there. The presence of a crust over a stone 

 tells by its density the fusibility of the rock and suggests the dur- 

 ation of its passing through our air. The pittings and furrowings 

 also tell of its experience in transit, while these and thread-like 

 flows of metal matter tell of the orientation or line of travel of the 

 mass. It is true that some small broken surface is most essential 

 and desirable as showing its inner structure, unaffected by external 

 treatment. But a piece of an aerolite showing only the inner 

 structure with none of the imposed crust, is clearly incomplete. 

 Often this must be — particularly in small fragments — but the pos- 

 session of an area of original surface adds great value. 



SPECIMENS OF HISTORICAL OR TRADITIONAL VALUE. 



A great point of interest in a collection of any class of objects, 

 is that it possesses objects which are connected with events — usual- 

 ly of distant date — which are of historical or traditional value. 

 Instances of this as touching books, paintings, statuary, armors, 

 dress, furniture, etc., are too evident to require any examples. 

 Among meteorites — comparatively few as are the number of kinds 

 — there are still some which have this merit. Elbogen, the Pallas 

 Iron and Ensisheim each are notable in the history of an early prov- 

 ince, of travel, and of war, as well as being each the oldest preserved 

 of its class. Barbotan and Tabor tell of early incredulity; L'Aigle, 

 of incredulity dispelled. Medwedewa, Campo del Cielo, Rasgata, 

 and Toluca tell of the early distant voyages of Pallas, Rubin de 

 Celsis, Bosingault and Humboldt. The Cape York meteorites 

 (Anighito, etc.) told us first by Ross and later much more fully by 

 Peary of the use of a heaven-born iron by a tribe of polar people. 

 Red River and Weston first pointedly called American attention to 

 meteorites. San Gregorio (El Morito) and Zacatecas first awoke 

 Mexican attention. Casas Grandes, mummied in a cave of Chihua- 

 hua, and Charcas, before an old temple in San Louis Potosi, are 

 instances of early worship of meteorites by aboriginal Mexicans. 

 Iron Creek, on a hill of British America, Anderson and Octibbeha, 

 in prehistoric graves in our Western and Southern states, the 

 Kaaba in Mecca and Kesen in Japan, all these meteorites and a few 



