Dr. Walter Flight — History of Meteorite^ 497 



was, under the extreme conditions that obtained during the ice-sheet 

 pei'iod, complete in every respect, the hypothesis that many of these 

 cauldron-like hollows are due to the eddying of the ice must be 

 accepted until it can be shown that this hypothesis is clearly 

 disproved by any of the facts. 



III. — A Chapter in the History of Meteorites. 



By "Walter Flight, D.Sc, F.G.S., 



Of the Department of Mineralogy, British Museum. 



[Continued from page 412.) 



1853, February 10th— Girgenti, Sicily. 1 



It is probable that the history of this fall has unfortunately been 

 lost to science. Vom Rath has recently endeavoured, but without 

 avail, to gather information from Gemmellaro, of Palermo, respecting 

 what now appears to have been a shower of stones rather than the 

 fall of a single meteorite, as hitherto supposed. Gemmellaro was 

 unable in 1869 to discover any persons who witnessed the fall; as, 

 however, it appears that two years after the occurrence Greg 3 was 

 informed that an account had been printed in a Sicilian scientific 

 journal, more particulars of the fall may yet be obtained. 



The two fragments examined by vom Eath were partly covered 

 with a black crust forming an undulating surface, with occasional 

 little prominences that revealed the presence of nickel-iron. The 

 structure of the rock is chondritic, of a light greyish white, is finely 

 granular, appearing to the eye almost uniform in texture. A frac- 

 tured surface exhibits a great number of exceedingly fine black lines 

 which seem to have their origin in the crust, although, from their 

 diminutive size (they are generally only to be recognized with a 

 lens), it is, says the author, difficult to believe that they are filled 

 with fused matter. (Compare with Meunier's observations on the 

 black lines in the Aumieres meteorite, page 401.) They form a 

 tangled mesh-work enclosing the spherules and rounded crystalline 

 grains of olivine ; and they are most abundant round the granules of 

 magnetic pyrites, which they occasionally traverse. The nickel-iron 

 is less abundant than in the Pultusk meteorites, and besides forming 

 rounded or hackly grains, occurs, as in the Krahenberg aerolite, in 

 fine veins. The magnetic pyrites (troilite ?), which is more abun- 

 dant than the preceding mineral, takes different hues, and both it 

 and the granules of chromite are grouped together in small circles, 

 which give the rock a more distinctly chondritic character. Spherules 

 of sufficient size to project from a fractured surface and capable of 

 being detached are rare ; some, however, have a fibrous structure 

 and a pale green colour. Under the microscope the mass of the rock 

 is found to be an aggregate of white crystalline grains ; in it one 



1 G. vom Eath. Fogg. Ann., 1869, cxxxviii. 541. — S. Meunier. Compt. rend., 

 1873, lxxvi. 109. 



2 R. P. Greg. Phil. Mag. xxiv. 534. 



