318 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (September, 1912. 
(or some reducing gas) in the matrix of the original rock with 
formation of metallic iron according to the following equa- 
tion :— 
2 Fe,0, +3 C=4 Fe +3 CO, 
The reduction of pressure must have been sudden, enabling 
each garnet to liquefy under the influence of the prevalent high 
temperature. The sudden reduction of pressure must have 
been followed by a rapid decrease in temperature, causing the 
liquid globules to crystallise quickly with the production of the 
various radiated structures due to enstatite alone, and the 
complicated intergrowths resembling eutectic crystallisations, 
when both enstatite and olivine have crystallised out. Such a 
combination of conditions seems to me obtainable only in one 
way, namely by the sudden disruption of a celestial body in 
which lay, under high pressure and temperature at some depth 
The dispersal of the fragments produced by this disruption 
would doubtless be accompanied by a sufficiently speedy fall in 
temperature to cause the rapid congelation of the liquefied 
garnets 
Since it is possible to suggest this very simple explanation 
of the formation of chondrules, it is necessary to see whether 
such facts as are available support the idea. Returning to the 
original slide of the Khohar meteorite it is noticed that the 
degree of perfection of the iron-rim round each of the chondrules 
is very variable, and in some cases the iron is almost absent. 
This variation in the character of the iron border is to a cer- 
tain extent correlative with variations in the character of the 
chondrules themselves. One particular chondrule of enstatite 
affords very convincingevidence. (See plate XXVII, fig. 2). It 
isapparent from the slide that the enstatite has crystallised very 
rapidly, starting from a point on one side of the chondrule, and 
that, as the radiate needles of enstatite increased in length, they 
pushed before them the surplus ferric oxide. Consequently, most 
of it occurs on the side of the chondrule remote from the point 
at which crystallisation started, not, however, as oxide, but in 
the metallic state, having been reduced outside the chondrule, 
probably by graphite in the matrix. A certain amount of the 
iron has become entangled between the enstatite needles, and 
indicates that there may have been inclusions of some form of 
between the chondrules consists largely of enstatite, olivine, and 
nickel-iron. These are to be regarded as original constituents of 
the rock as it existed in the primitive celestial body. Whenthe 
pressure was released they suffered no appreciable change, ex- 
