GREAT METEORITE COLLECTIONS. 163 



inclusions. The irons, too, when cut, polished and etched first 

 reveal all the many teachings of their inner part. The Widman- 

 statten figures — present in four-fifths of them — tell many genetic 

 stories, besides serving as a certain index of identification of the 

 fall. Gustave Rose, the great chemist, while director of the Royal 

 Prussian collection of meteorites, announced to the Berlin Academy 

 in 1865, "I have caused the whole series of stone and of iron meteor- 

 ites to be cut and the latter (the irons) to be etched, because only 

 thus can there be obtained an insight to the composition of the 

 first and structure of the latter. " 



There is an immense amount of work involved in this prepar- 

 ation of a meteorite collection — incidentally, too, in the preparation 

 of its siderites so that they shall not rust when exposed to damp 

 atmosphere. 



A collection thus enhanced and conserved has a great added 

 factor of value. 



THE BROAD GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIMENS. 



While the rapid revolution of our globe, and its fleet flight 

 through space prevents any constancy of external action upon any 

 single part of it, the possession in a collection of meteorite speci- 

 mens from wide-spread localities is still a point of great interest. 

 The showing of the absolute lack of regularity of distribution, and 

 of all things relating thereto, is a negative teaching which it is 

 interesting and valuable to have manifest in the collection. The 

 similarity of three irons falling respectively in Arabia, Australia, 

 and in Kansas, or the difference in two others falling in the same 

 county of one of our states, is a matter of the highest interest and 

 value to record. Only a great collection can possess this merit. 

 Wide distribution of the sources of the specimens is thus an im- 

 portant factor of value. 



ALL SIDERITES OR SIDEROLITES EVER SEEN TO FALL. 



Of the 334 aerolites known to science, all but 41 have .been 

 seen to fall. The fall having been seen, thus loses its nature of 

 novelty or peculiarity by its frequency. Their frequence leads us 

 to more readily accept those which are simply found, long years or 

 centuries after they fell. Furthermore, their structure and their 

 material gave some apparently plausible ground to the idea, which 

 was formerly frequently advanced, that they are a segregation of 

 material in the air or in space. 



