624 OLIVER C. FARRINGTON 



The above statements would probably not be questioned by 

 any authorities of the present day. The following, however, 

 might not be agreed to by all : 



4. The substance of meteorites was in a solid state before the fall of these 

 bodies to the earth. 



5. The structure of the majority of meteorites shows that their substance 

 has cooled from a liquid or semi-liquid condition to that of a solid. 



6. The structure of the majority of iron meteorites shows that the change 

 from a liquid or semi-liquid to a solid state has taken place slowly. 



7. The structure of the majority of stone meteorites shows that the change 

 from a liquid or semi-liquid to the solid state has taken place rapidly. 



The four latter statements may then be briefly discussed, 

 and important known objections to them stated. 



Concerning statement 4 : It was suggested by writers in the 

 early part of the last century that meteorites were concretions 

 formed in our own atmosphere. Brezina inclines to accept this 

 view with the modification that the substance of meteorites was 

 extra-terrestrial, but that it arrived at the earth in the shape of 

 gas or dust and was cemented or solidified by the earth's atmos- 

 phere. To my own mind, the slickensided surfaces and veins 

 exhibited by many meteorites afford sufficient contradiction of 

 such a view, and compel the conclusion that the matter in which 

 such structures occur had existed in a solid state for a con- 

 siderable length of time before it reached the earth. 



Concerning statement 5 : Several writers, but especially 

 Daubree,' have expressed the conviction that the substance of 

 meteorites gives evidence of having passed directly from a 

 gaseous or vaporous state to that of a solid. The opinion seems 

 to be based chiefly on Meunier's synthetic experiments, in which 

 he succeeded in reproducing mineral aggregations having the 

 composition of meteorites and somewhat resembling them in 

 structure, by the inter-action of vapors.^ But, as pointed out 

 by Cohen, 3 the absence of gas and vapor pores in meteorites 



' " Observations sur les conditions qui paraissent avoir preside a la formation des 

 meteorites," Comptes Rendus, 1893, CXVI, pp. 345-7. 



^Encyclopedie Chimique, Tome II, " Meteorites," chap. v. 



'^ Meteoriten-kunde, Heft I, p. 327. 



