220 Reviews — Some Famous Collections of Meteorites. 



enriched by the absorption of the specimens belonging to the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, and at the date the catalogue was written included 

 specimens representing 379 falls and finds. 



The arrangement of the catalogue is alphabetical according to the 

 name of the meteorite, and particular care has been taken to secure 

 accuracy in the names of India meteorites. Under each entry we 

 find the date of the fall or find, the locality, a description of the 

 specimen, its registered number, and the weight. Brezina's 

 classification is used. 



A small piece of criticism that suggests itself is whether it is wise 

 to issue a catalogue of this character among the memoirs of the 

 Survey and not as a separate publication. 



II. — Handbook and Descriptive Catalogue of the Meteorite 

 Collections in the United States National Museum. By 

 George P. Merrill, pp. x -f- 208, with 41 plates. Washington: 

 Government Printing Office. 1916. 



rPHIS excellent publication, which constitutes Bulletin No. 94 of 

 J. the United States National Museum, comes from the pen of the 

 well-known Head Curator of Geology in that Institution. In the 

 preface he tells us that, while the book is intended primarily for 

 the use of the general public, it is so arranged as to meet the 

 requirements of the studeut and the investigator. The great 

 difficulty that confronts the writer of a work of this kind is how 

 much knowledge may be presumed of the average visitor to the 

 museum, and therefore how much to say and how much to leave out ; 

 sometimes the attempt to keep the phraseology free from technicality 

 results in the information given being at the best misleading and at 

 the worst wrong. Mr. Merrill for his part has not hesitated to take 

 the reader into comparatively deep waters, but the plunge should 

 prove stimulating to anyone of at least average education. The 

 frequent quotation of the results of chemical analvses may possibly 

 have a forbidding appearance to readers unacquainted with their 

 meaning. 



The book is divided into two parts, of which the first, running to 

 28 pages, is really a compendious textbook on meteorites. A brief 

 explanation is given of Brezina's cumbersome classification, which 

 faute de mieux is retained in the book, and the constituent minerals 

 of meteorites are described. A few pages are devoted to the 

 structure of meteorites, particular attention being paid to the curious 

 chondrules characteristic of many stones. The exact process by 

 which these granular masses have been formed is still a little 

 uncertain; in one peculiar type of stone — the Allegan — glassy 

 chondrules are found in a crystalline matrix, which is contrary to 

 what would have been expected. Mr. Merrill discusses on the 

 usual lines the early records of meteorites, and the phenomena 

 accompanying the fall. He, however, omits to say anything about 

 their possible origin, or the light that the study of the solidification 

 of alloys has thrown on the structure of the siderites and the- 

 metallic portion of aerolites. 



