Dr. Walter Flight — History of Meteorites. 409 



The first meteorite investigated on the principles here laid clown 

 was the remarkable stone which fell at Busti, in India, at the above 

 date. The fall, which took place from a cloudless sky at 10*10 a.m., 

 was attended with an explosion, louder than a clap of thunder and last- 

 ing three to four minutes, and must have occurred about the time 

 the stone passed the longitude of Goruckpur. The meteorite, which 

 weighs about 3 lbs., consists for the most part of the mineral enstatite; 

 at one end, however, are embedded a number of chestnut-brown 

 spherules, in which again were detected minute octahedra having the 

 lustre and colour of gold. These two minerals seem scarcely to 

 have been affected by the heat that fused the silicates surrounding 

 and encrusting them. 



The brown spherules are calcium (magnesium) monosulphide, and 

 have been named by the author ' Oldhamite ' ; their outer surface 

 is generally coated with calcium sulphate. This mineral cleaves with 

 equal facility in three directions which give normal angles averaging 

 89° 5 V, and are no doubt 90°. Its system, therefore, is cubic; in 

 polarized light it is seen to be devoid of double refraction. The 

 specific gravity is 2-58 and the hardness 3-5 — 4r-0. With boiling 

 water it yields calcium polysulphides, and in acid it readily dissolves 

 with solution of hydrogen sulphide. The composition of these 

 spherules was found to be : 



Oldhfl 't \ Calcium monosulphide 



( Magnesium monosulphide ... 

 Gypsum ... ... 



Calcium carbonate .. . 



Troilite ; 



I. 



II. 



89 369 



90-244 



3-246 



3-264 



3-951 



4-189 



3-434 



— 



— 



2-303 



100-000 



100-000 



The presence of such a sulphide in a meteorite shows that the con- 

 ditions under which the ingredients of the rock took their present 

 form are unlike those met with in our globe ; water and oxygen 

 must have alike been absent. The existence of iron in a state of 

 minute division, as often found in meteorites, leads to a similar con- 

 clusion. But if the conditions necessary for the formation of pure 

 calcium sulphide be borne in mind, the evidence imported into this 

 inquiry by the Busti aerolite seems further to point to the presence 

 of a reducing agent during the formation of its constituent minerals ; 

 whilst the crystalline structure of the oldhamite and of the mineral 

 next described must certainly have been the result of fusion at 

 an enormously high temperature. The detection of hydrogen in 

 meteoric iron by Graham, and more recently by other observers, tends 

 to confirm the probability of the presence of such a reducing -agent. 



" Osbornite " is the name given by the author to golden-yellow 

 microscopic octahedra embedded in the oldhamite. These minute 

 crystals gave the following angles : 



Regular 

 octahedron. 



Ill, 111 = 70° 27' and 70° 37' 70° 31' 



111, iff = 109° 31' 109° 28' 



111,111 = 69° 58' 



