Dr. Walter Flight— History of Meteorites. 221 



a constituent of the earth's crust, it seemed at first sight probable 

 that it owes its presence to infiltration of water holding it in solu- 

 tion. The clay-like soil, however, in which the Lance meteorite lay 

 during three days was dry, and the vitrified crust covering the stone 

 would preclude an infiltration of salt to its centre, from which part 

 the fragment analysed was taken. Moreover, the absence of calcium 

 salts, which would be expected to be associated with it, was fully 

 established. The sodium chloride 1 of the Lance meteorite, like the 

 calcium chloride of the Ovifak iron (see page 122), appears beyond 

 question to be of cosmical origin. The probable presence of what must 

 be a trace only of copper was ascertained by spectrum analysis. No 

 carbon was met with. 



An analysis of the stone showed it to possess the following com- 

 position : 



1. Iron, as nickel-iron.. 



2. Iron and other metals combined with sulphur 

 3 Sulphur combined with the above metals ... 



4. Silicic acid 



5. Iron protoxide... 



6. Manganese protoxide 



7. Magnesia 



8. Sodium chloride 



9. Constituents not acted upon by acid 

 10. Hygrometric water 



7-81 

 9-09 

 5-19 



17-20 



11-33 

 0-05 



13-86 

 0-12 



33-44 

 1-24 



99-33 

 The constituents Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7 make up 42-44: per cent, of 

 the stone, and are those of an olivine in which the oxygen ratio 

 of Fe : Mg is 1 : 2, the same as that of the olivine of Chassigny, 

 Alais, and other meteorites. 



By acting upon a portion of the meteorite with hydrogen and 

 chlorine successively at a high temperature it lost 34-98 per cent, in 

 weight. It appears from this that the iron and manganese oxides 

 of the olivine underwent reduction, and the water was removed by 

 the • first reagent, while the iron, nickel, and cobalt, either free or 

 combined with sulphur, together with this sulphur, as well as the 

 two metals forming constituents of the olivine, which, it appears, 

 lose their oxygen when treated with hydrogen, were, one and all, 

 removed by the action of chlorine. They amount together to 34-66 

 per cent. Daubree concludes from this that the residue consists of 

 the silicate which withstood the action of acid, together with the 

 silicic acid and magnesia of that which gelatinizes in contact with 

 this reagent. It is to be regretted that the composition of the 

 insoluble portion, which constitutes one-third of the stone, and of 

 which we are told that it consists at least of two substances, one 

 colourless (enstatite?), and the other almost black (chrornite ?), has 

 not been determined. 



1 Scheere rfound this chloride in the meteorite of Stannern {Jour, de Pht/s., lxi. 

 469).— In some hailstones which fell 1871, August 20th, 11 a.m., at Zurich, and some 

 of which weighed 12 grains, Kenngott found cubes or fragments of cubes of sodium 

 chloride. He believed that they might have been carried by the wind from North 

 Africa. 



