244 REPORT— 1875. 



stationed at Haddon thought he saw matter fall near him, and the next day 

 found a lump of melted matter, light in weight and of a nearly black colour, 

 a portion being " a yellowish-brown substance like cinders from iron-smelting," 

 as well as two fragments that were black, like coke, and a smaller fragment 

 of a yellow hue. This great meteor, of which an engraving is given in ' The 

 Illustrated Australian News,' was, it appears, observed in several parts of the 

 country ; but no other accounts of it indicating either the extent or position 

 of its real course have yet been received. 



Part II. Meteorites. — Ahstmcts of papers puhllslied reeenthj on Meteorites 

 ivhich either fell or iv ere found before 1874. Bu Walter Flight. 



1808.— -Ecd Eivcr, Texas*. 



As Graham t has shown that the Lenarto meteoinc iron contains 2-85 timea 

 its volume of occluded hydrogen, carbonic oxide, and nitrogen, and Mallet 

 found 3' 17 times its volume of hydrogen, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, and 

 nitrogen occluded in the meteoric iron of Augusta Co., Virginia, it occurred 

 to the author that it might be possible to detect in the gas of these irons the 

 unknown gaseous elements assumed to be present in the solar corona and 

 chromosphere. The investigation was undertaken with the hope that the 

 spectroscope would reveal them, if present, although their small amount or 

 peculiar characters might render their detection by ordinary chemical methods 

 difficult or impossible. 



A vacuum-tube of the form ordinarily employed in spectroscopic work was 

 attached to a branch of the exhaust-tube of a Sprengel j)ump, and a prelimi- 

 nary examination was made of the lines exhibited by this tube after simple 

 withdrawal of the air. As Pliicker and Hittorf J have already shown, lines 

 of hydrogen and bands due to carbon make their appearance as soon as the 

 limit of exhaustion has been attained ; the author noticed the red hydrogen 

 line when the tension fell to 4 or 5 millims. and other hydrogen lines when a 

 higher degree of rarefaction was attained. Mercury lines, varying in bright- 

 ness with the temperature of the room, are also to be seen. His investigations 

 were directed to an examination of the gases of the great Texas meteorite 

 preserved in the Mineral Collection of Yale College, and the meteoric iron of 

 Tazewell Co. and Arva, Hungary (pp. 247, 248). The iron was in very small 

 particles (chips produced by the borer), and the exhaustion was proceeded 

 with without application of heat. He noticed that the iron gave off a por- 

 tion of its gas at ordinary temperature ; and when the tension was reduced to 4 

 millims., Ha and Ilfl were bright and distinct, and Hy visible while the carbort 

 Ipands were also distinctly seen. When a gentle heat was applied, the tube, 

 which had hitherto presented the appearance of an ordinary hydrogen tube, 

 underwent a change ; the light in the broad portion became a straight hazy 

 stream, of a dull greenish-white colour, similar to that observed in a tube 

 containing either of the oxides of carbon. When the tube containing the 

 metal was raised to low redness, only a small quantity of gas was given off. 

 Wright did not measure the amount of gas removed by the pump, but has 

 calculated this quantity from an observation of the degree to which 1 cub. 

 csntim. of the gas lowered the gauge of the instrument. He finds in this 

 way the mixed gases extracted to have occupied 4-75 times the volume 

 of the metal. While this exceeds the quantity which Graham and Mallet 



* A. W. Wright, ' Amer. Journ. Soi.' 1875, ix. p. 294. 



t Proc. Roy. Soe. vol. xy. p. .502. \ Phil, Trans, vol, civ, p. 1. 



