140 



METEORITE. 



Meteorite. 



Zacatccas. 



Elbogen. 



Lenarto. 

 Greenland. 



Corollaries. 



Theory. 



Academi- 

 cians of 

 Paris. 



Mineria de Mexico, Don Fausto d'Elhuyar, which I de- 

 posited in different cabinets in Europe, and of which 

 M. M. Vauqurlin and Klaproth published an analysis. 

 This mass of Durango is affirmed to weigh upwards of 

 1900 myriagrammes, which ii 400 more than the aero- 

 lithos discovered at Otumpa by M. Rubin de Celis. M. 

 Frederick Sonnenschmidt, a distinguished mineralogist, 

 who travelled over more of Mexico than myself, dis- 

 covered also, in 1792, in the interior of the town of 

 Zacatecas, a mass of malleable iron of the weight of 97 

 myriagrammes, which, in its exterior and physical cha- 

 racter, was found by him entirely analogous to the 

 malleable iron described by the celebrated Pallas." 



In the42d and 44th vols. of Gilbert's Annals, mention 

 is made of meteoric iron at Elbogen, in Bohemia, which 

 originally weighed 190 Ibs. A fragment detached from 

 it, and fashioned into the shape of a coin, has the pe- 

 culiar property, when put into weak nitric acid, of be- 

 ing attacked unequally, and of then exhibiting blackish 

 particles, and others, of a whitish hue, in relief, whose 

 mutual arrangements seem to depend on some law of 

 crystallization. The Chevalier Schreibers, who first 

 made this observation, found that it also applied to 

 specimens of the Krasnojark mass ; and he is inclined 

 to believe, that it probably extends to all native iron 

 that has fallen from the atmosphere. 



Native iron is also supposed to have fallen near Le- 

 narto in Hungary. Glib. Ann. p. 49- 



Two masses in Greenland, from which the Esqui- 

 maux manufacture a sort of small knives. Ross's Ac- 

 count of an Expedition to the Arctic Regions. Edin. 

 Journ. of Science, No. 1. 



A few other detached masses of native iron have 

 been quoted by different writers ; but as they contain 

 no nickel, and have a different texture from the pre- 

 ceding, their meteoric origin seems to be extremely 

 doubtful. 



From the foregoing historical review of our subject, 

 we may safely deduce a few general observations, or 

 corollaries. 



That meteorites do really fall from the upper re- 

 gions of the air to the earth, can no longer be doubted, 

 unless we are determined to reject the evidence of hu- 

 man testimony. These bodies have a peculiar aspect, 

 and peculiar characters, which belong to no native 

 rocks, or stones with which we are acquainted. Their 

 fall is usually accompanied by a luminous meteor, 

 which is seldom visible for more than a few minutes, 

 and generally disappears with explosions. These bo- 

 dies appear to have fallen from various points of the 

 heavens, at all periods, in all seasons of the year, at all 

 hours, both of the day and the night, also in all coun- 

 tries of the world, on mountains, and in plains, and 

 without any particular relation to volcanos. The lu- 

 minous meteor which precedes their fall, affects no 

 constant or invariable direction. They are, for the 

 most part, hot when they fall, and emit sulphureous 

 vapours. As their descent usually takes place in calm, 

 and often cloudless weather, their origin seems to be 

 owing to some very different cause from that which 

 produces rain or storms. 



In our second volume, p. 641, to which we beg 

 leave to refer, we have unfolded our own sentiments 

 relative to the very problematical source of these occa- 

 sional visitants of our planet ; and as these views still 

 appear to us less exceptionable than any others which 

 have been submitted to our notice, we shall glance at 

 some of the latter with all suitable brevity. 



The opinion of the Parisian Academicians, who, in 



the middle of the last century, maintained that the Meteorite, 

 stones in question merely resulted from a stroke of T~~-' 

 lightning on the spot in which they were found, will 

 not, in the present day, bear a moment's examination ; 

 for we have seen, that thunder and lightning do riot 

 necessarily accompany the fall of meteorites ; and that 

 these last differ from all the solid substances on the 

 face of the globe. We will not deny, that lightning 

 may tear up th'e soil, and convert it into a solid mass ; 

 but we have no proof of its competency to project 

 masses, so formed, into an indefinite height in the at- 

 mosphere, nor to generate thousands of hard stones in 

 fine cloudless weather. 



The supposition that such concretions have been Volcanic 

 driven off from some of our volcanos, is scarcely less hypotheses, 

 tenable; for the compound lavas of burning mountains 

 are never found remote from the scene of their forma- 

 tion ; and none of them present the aspect and charac- 

 ters of the bodies which we have described. Besides, 

 most of the stony showers on record are represented as 

 occurring when no remarkable volcanic eruption was 

 known to have taken place. The ashes of a violent 

 eruption have frequently, from their levity, been waft- 

 ed to a considerable distance ; but we are altogether 

 unacquainted with any projectile force which can dart 

 solid and heavy masses hundreds of leagues, through 

 such a dense medium as the atmosphere. Mr. King, 

 indeed, is inclined to believe, that an immense cloud 

 of ashes, pyritical dust, and particles of iron, forcibly 

 propelled from Vesuvius to a very great height, be- 

 came condensed in its fall, took fire from its motion in 

 the air, and its electrical elements, and thus gave birth 

 to the Siena stones. But he does not thus account for 

 the presence of nickel in their composition, nor for the 

 other obvious discrepancies between volcanic ashes and 

 meteoric stones. In order to explain the direction of 

 the cloud which proceeded from the north, he has re 

 course to the supposition, that it was at first driven, in 

 its course, to the northward of Siena, and afterwards 

 urged back by a contrary current of wind. But the 

 cloud itself, and its destinies, are alike gratuitous: and 

 it is much more conformable to what we know of pa- 

 rallel cases, to conceive that the Siena phenomenon 

 would have occurred at the time, and in the manner in 

 which it did occur, although Vesuvius had remained 

 in a state of perfect quiescence. 



In the boldness of his speculations, M. Bory de 

 Saint Vincent takes a still wider flight, and sends forth 

 his meteorites from immense depths, in some early 

 stage of the earth's existence, when ignivomous moun- 

 tains, as he pompously denominates them, were en- 

 dowed with propelling forces adequate to the disper- 

 sion of matter into the regions of space, in which they 

 were constrained, for ages, to obey the compound laws 

 of impulse and gravitation, until, in the progress of 

 time, their spiral revolutions terminated on the surface 

 of their native planet. Before, however, we can tame- 

 ly acquiesce in the terms of such an extravagant hy- 

 pothesis, we may be permitted to call for the evidence 

 of the existence of those ancient and wonder working 

 volcanos, which could communicate planetary motion 

 to chips of rock, without up-heaving the rocks them- 

 selves 



The sagacious Troili, too, in his endeavours to ac- 

 count for a fact which he has so triumphantly proved, 

 labours to convince his readers that the Albereto stone 

 must have been torn from the bowels of the earth, and 

 projected to a great height by the powerful agency of 

 subterraneous conflagration ; and these conflagrations 



