632 OLIVER C. FARRINGTON 



earth, which would lead to the formation of water from these 

 gases, which might not prevail upon a body of smaller size. 

 The chief reason, however, for the absence of water from 

 meteorites seems to be the fact that "the size of the meteorite 

 spheroid was probably not sufficient to enable it to hold a 

 quantity of the free gases competent to the formation of water 

 or even to retain water vapor if it was once formed. The 

 spheroid was probably as destitute of an atmosphere as the moon. 



I am well aware that an origin of meteorites from a shattered 

 globe has been suggested before. Boisse was perhaps the first 

 to do this,^ but the idea was especially elaborated by Meunier,^ 

 who reconstructed from the various types of meteorites a hypo- 

 thetical globe in which these types were arranged largely in 

 accordance with their density. But the hypotheses of these 

 authors were based purely on considerations of density, it being 

 arbitrarily assumed that in a cosmic body substances would 

 arrange themselves according to density. 



It was when a study of the structural characters of meteorites 

 showed me that the substances had apparently arranged them- 

 selves in the order of their density, and exhibited corresponding 

 differences of structure, that I was led to form the above hypoth- 

 esis ; and it is perhaps worth remarking that I reached this con- 

 clusion before I had seen Meunier's papers on the subject. 



It is not likely that the globes or spheroids, such as have 

 been here hypothesized, were of large size. In the solar system, 

 for example, there is no indication that the total disruption of a 

 body anything like in size to a planet has ever taken place. 

 Such an occurrence would produce effects more catastrophic in 

 their nature than could be referred to matter so small in relative 

 quantity as that which has within human experience reached the 

 earth in the form of meteorites. Such globes would, perhaps, in 

 their entirety, never come within human observation. But that 

 there exists in space a vast quantity of fragmental matter beside 

 that visible to us as stars, nebulae, and the bodies of the solar sys- 

 tem, there can be little doubt. Oliver C. Farrington. 



^ Memoires de la Societe des lettres, sciences et arts de P Aveyron, Vol. VII, p. 168. 

 ^ Cours de Geologie Comparee. 



