594 Dr. Walter Flight — History of Meteorites. 



1867, January 19th.— Saonlod, 3 Miles N. of Khettree, Sheka- 

 wattie, Rajputana, India. [Lat. 28° 9' 45" N. ; Long. 75° 51' 20' E.] l 



A shower of stones, numbering about forty, fell near the village 

 of Saonlod on the above day, at 9 a.m. The morning was bright 

 and clear, and no clouds were to be seen, when a loud report, resem- 

 bling that of a cannon, was beard over an area many miles in length 

 and breadth, and was succeeded by two still louder, and followed in 

 turn by "a regular roll, resembling musketry heard at a short dis- 

 tance." The terrified inhabitants of the village where the stones fell, 

 seeing in them the instruments of vengeance of an offended deity, 

 set about gathering all they could find, and, having pounded them to 

 powder, scattered them to the winds. A gentleman connected with 

 the Topographical Survey, who happened at the time to be a few 

 miles distant from Saonlod, states that he sent all the sowars attached 

 to his camp to scour the country, with the intention of procuring as 

 many of the stones as possible. He adds : "I was very nearly too 

 late, as, between them all, they only managed to get the piece I sent, 

 .... and that under promise of a large reward." According to 

 the description, given b} r the more respectable class of natives, some 

 of the meteorites were of the size of a 24-pounder shot, and had a 

 blackish appearance on the outside ; they fell with such velocity 

 that they sank two or three feet into the ground in a sandy soil. 



The stone has a nearly black crust, cellular on the surface and 

 corrugated somewhat longitudinally, and is about one-third of a 

 millimetre in thickness. The interior has a light bluish-grey colour 

 in some parts, and a much darker grey in others ; the two portions 

 lie side by side like two strata in some places, while in others a 

 nodule of the one is seen to be enclosed in the other. The freshly 

 fractured surface is studded with metallic particles of nickel-iron, 

 and exhibits translucent granules of a greenish yellow, which are 

 probably olivine. Siliceous spherules, as well as cavities once occu- 

 pied by them, are also observed, and when the mineral is finely 

 powdered and examined under water with a lens, the lighter portion 

 of the stone exhibits a considerable quantity of nearly white crys- 

 talline particles, mixed with small angular fragments of black, 

 brownish, greenish yellow, and opaque minerals, as well as rounded 

 particles of nickel-iron ; the dark-grey portion has very- much the 

 same appearance. 



The meteorite is not very hard ; the specific gravity of some small 

 pieces of the light-coloured portion was 3-743, of the dark-coloured 

 variety 3-612, while analysis showed it to consist of : 



Nickel-iron 1855 



Troilite and schreibersite 5-22 



Soluble silicate 35 - 18 



Insoluble silicate 42-36 



101-31 

 The metallic portion contains : 

 Iron = 91-54 ; Nickel = 6-79; Cobalt = 1-15 ; Cbromium = 0-52. Total = 100-00. 



1 D. Waldie. Jour, Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1869, xxxviii. 252. — Records Geol. 

 Survey India, 1870, ii. 101 ; 1870, iii. 10. 



