1892.] PRESTON METEORITE FROM KENTON COUNTY, KY. 153 



In the course of a conversation with Mr. S. J. Cornelius, a 

 brother of the gentleman of whom I purchased the meteorite, he 

 mentioned the fact, that about three o'clock on the seventh of July, 

 1873, while returning from a picnic in this locality, and when within a 

 half mile of where the metorite was subsequently found, he heard a 

 great rumbling in the heavens, which appeared to last three or four 

 minutes and was followed by a quivering of the earth. As the day 

 was clear he could not account for this phenomena. I met at least 

 seven other people who distinctly remembered the picnic and the 

 " rumbling in the heavens," and some one or two the "quiver in the 

 earth." 



(Is there any connection between this date and the fall of this 

 meteor ?) 



Mr. Preston also read extracts from a publication by the British 

 Museum on the history of meteorites and theories as to their origin. 

 He exhibited a cast of the new meteorite and sections of typical metal- 

 lic, stony and mixed meteorites, showing the Widemanstiitten figures, 

 nodules, troilite, pittings, and crust characteristic of these bodies. 



An interesting exhibit was that of a cast of a meteorite now in 

 the British Museum. This is in three pieces, a large and two smaller 

 ones and the fragments were found many miles apart, but so fitting 

 together as to make it evident that they were once united. One of 

 the smaller fragments is entirely encrusted, showing that it had been 

 torn from the mass early in its flight while its velocity was still such 

 as with the resistance of the air to raise the surface of the mass to 

 the melting point. The other small fragment thrown off as the 

 body neared the earth, is also encrusted save at the place of separa- 

 tion from the parent mass where the surface is unfused and fresh, 

 showing that, when it parted, the steady resistance of the air had so 

 checked its speed that fusion was no longer possible. So with the 

 fires of youth quenched and an independent career denied it, it settled 

 upon the shelves of the Museum by the side of its more brilliant 

 brother, by a happy law of compensation serving as useful and 

 honorable an end. 



The President exhibited photographs showing pitting made by 

 tadpoles in the muddy bed of the old canal, and a laminated rock 

 with bullae made when it was plastic by imprisoned marsh gas — the 

 reverse side bearing a strong resemblance to the work of the tadpoles 

 in the canal mud. 



The following paper was read by title : 



