500 Dr. Walter Flight — History of Meteorites. 



1855, June 7th. — St. Denis-Westrem, near Ghent, Flandre orientale, 



Belgium. 1 



The earlier descriptions of this meteorite are by Duprez 2 and 

 Haidinger. 3 Meunier states that the rocky portion of this meteorite 

 accords in all its characters with that of the stones which fell at 

 Luce, Sarthe, France (1768, September 13th), Mauerkirchen and 

 others, as well as with that of the meteorite of Sauguis St. Etienne, 

 Basses-Pyrenees (1868, September 7th). The latter rock, to which 

 he has given the name of " luceite," is described as white and finely 

 granular, rough to the touch and eminently crystalline, and having 

 the specific gravity of 3*43. He reproduces from another of his 

 memoirs the results of his examination of the last-mentioned 

 stone, and to this we shall presently direct attention. No analysis 

 of the Belgian meteorite appears to have been performed. The 

 paper is chiefly devoted to theoretical considerations respecting the 

 stratigraphical arrangement of the star-masses whence the meteorites 

 are supposed to be derived. Meteorites, he maintains, are the pro- 

 duct of the breaking-up of larger celestial bodies at the completion 

 of their development, and the moon, he considers, is now approaching 

 this stage of her existence. 



Found 1856. — Hainholz, near Paderborn, Minden, Westphalia. 4 



This member of the small class of siderolites, originally described 

 by Wohler, von Beichenbach, and von Haidinger, has recently been 

 submitted to a careful chemical examination by Bammelsberg. It 

 was remarked by von Beichenbach that the olivine of this meteorite 

 formed unusually large crystalline masses, the faces of which, how- 

 ever, were destroyed by weathering; one crystal was If in. long 

 and 1^ in. in breadth. 



Two specimens of this meteorite were found by Bammelsberg to 

 have the composition : 



Nickel-iron 14-48 12-70 



Chromite 0-58 10-52 



Olivine 56-45 62-78 



Bronzite 28-49 24-00 



100-00 100-00 



The metallic portion consists of : 



Iron = 9384 ; Nickel = 6-16 Total = 100-00 

 and the two silicates have the following composition : 



Si0 2 A1 2 3 FeO MgO CaO 



A. Soluble ... 35-77 ... — ... 22-91 ... 41-32 ... — =100-00 



B. Insoluble ... 53-05 ... 3-19 ... 15-63 ... 2540 ... 2-73 =10000 



1 S. Meunier. Bull. Acad. Sc. Belgique, 1870 [2], xxix. 210. (See also F. 

 Duprez, Bull. Acad. Sc. Belgique, 1870 [2], xxix. 161.)— Acad, royale de Belgique. 

 Centieme Anniversaire de Fondation (1772-1872). Tome II. Rapport seculaire 

 {Sciences minerales), par G. Dewalque, 23. 



2 F. Duprez. Bull. Acad. Sc. Belgique, 1855 [2], x. 12. 



3 "W. von Haidinger. Sitzber. Ah. Wiss. Wien, 1860, xlii. 9. 



4 C. Bammelsberg. Monatsber. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, lxx. 314. — C. Bammelsberg. 

 Die chemiscbe Natur der Meteoriten. Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1870, 94. See 

 also Ber. Beutsch. Chem. Gesell. Berlin, 1870, iii. 523. 



