September 1, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



315 



suited in hopelessly scattering the material, 

 but has enabled dealers to enforce prices in 

 many cases absurdly high and actually pro- 

 hibitive so far as acquisition of material for 

 analysis and study is concerned. The writer 

 can speak feelingly on this point. To illus- 

 trate: A recent catalogue of a Philadelphia 

 dealer advertises a perfectly commonplace 

 type of meteoric stone at $5.00 a gram, the 

 only possible excuse being that there was not 

 much of it, and in falling it passed through 

 the roof of a barn! Even higher prices have 

 been recorded as paid by those whose chief aim 

 appears to have been numbers and a new fall 

 to add to their lists. The largest single indi- 

 vidual meteorites in any collection in the 

 world are those of Cape York, Greenland, and 

 Willamette, Oregon, in the American Museum 

 of New York. 



Prom a consideration of the dates of all 

 known falls it appears that such are most fre- 

 quent in the months of May and June, the pe- 

 riodic star showers of August and November 

 notwithstanding. Further it appears that of 

 the 273 falls concerning which satisfactory 

 datum is found, 184 occurred between the 

 hours of noon and midnight, and 89 from 

 midnight to noon. 



Some interesting facts are brought out in 

 the chapter on distribution, it being shown, 

 apparently, that falls are most numerous in 

 mountainous regions, as those of the southern 

 Appalachians in our own country, or the Alps 

 and Himalayas in Europe and Asia. The sug- 

 gestion that this may be due to superior gravi- 

 metric attraction can not, however, for a mo- 

 ment be accepted; moreover, the reviewer can 

 but feel that something is wrong in the prem- 

 ises, since but two falls can be credited to 

 Switzerland, with its Alps, while the flat plains 

 of Kansas have thus far yielded seventeen. It 

 is of further interest to note that of the total 

 of 634 known meteorites, 256 have been found 

 in Europe and 117 in the United States, or 

 more than two thirds the whole number from 

 less than one eighth of the land surface; and 

 still further, that of the 328 from the eastern 

 hemisphere, 299 are stone and but 79 iron, 

 while of the 256 from the western hemisphere, 



but 74 are stone and 182 iron. Whether these 

 seeming anomalies have any meaning or are 

 due merely to accident of find, the future 

 must decide. 



In the discussion of the origin of meteorites 

 the author gives adherence to the theory that 

 they are portions of a shattered planet or 

 planetoid, and is apparently favorably ini 

 clined to the views of Chamberlin — to a prob- 

 able source of disruption by differential attrac- 

 tion produced by the passage of a small body 

 within Roche's limit of a larger one. In the 

 chapter on terrestrial relations, comparison in 

 chemical composition is made between the 

 average composition of four meteorites, the 

 acidity of which is above normal, and the aver- 

 age composition of terrestrial rocks. The rea- 

 sons for the selection of but these four meteor- 

 ites are not quite acceptable to the reviewer, 

 but, incidentally it may be remarked that, in 

 consideration of the question of the origin of 

 the earth through an accumulation of mete- 

 oric matter, one is not necessarily led to the 

 consideration of one so fluid as to become 

 homogeneous throughout; indeed, Chamberlin 

 recognizes the possibility of a relatively cold 

 earth. In this case certainly the portions now 

 available for study should conform within rea- 

 sonable limits to that of the ingathered matter. 

 That they do not conform to that now being 

 ingathered, the reviewer has shown elsewhere. 

 Is it not better to account for this on the very 

 reasonable supposition that the materials now 

 being ingathered do not represent in composi- 

 tion those which fell during the later pe- 

 riods of earth history, rather than ignore the 

 extremely basic character of most meteorites 

 and use for comparison only the four acidic 

 types selected? 



The book, to cut the review short, shows a 

 thorough knowledge of the results achieved by 

 other workers, and forms a very welcome addi- 

 tion to existing literature. It is well illus- 

 trated by half-tone figures of form and struc- 

 ture, those of microstructure being reproduc- 

 tions from Tschermak's well-known " Mikro- 

 skopische Beschaffenheit der Meteoriten." 



Geo. P. Merrill 

 XT. S. National Museum 



