216 Br. Walter Flight— On Meteorites. 



fractured surface of the larger stone, a second black line, parallel to 

 the first, but less brilliant, is to be seen. Abundant particles of 

 nickel-iron and troilite are met with ; and the crust appears to 

 consist, to the extent of one-half, of the metallic alloy. Examination 

 under the microscope shows the ground mass to be colourless and 

 transparent, and to be fissured in every direction. It appears to 

 consist of olivine. Some olivine spherules are quite conspicuous, 

 surrounded either by the black material or nickel-iron ; other 

 chondra have a banded or radiate structure, like those observed by 

 Tschermak in the aerolites of Shergotty or (J-opalpur, and appear to 

 be bronzite ; and lastly, there are spherules of a homogeneous grey 

 translucent substance, devoid of or rarely traversed by fissures. 

 Buchner states that the meteorite of Hungen, while a member of the 

 most common class of meteorites, can easily be distinguished from 

 those which fell at Agen, Girgenti, New Concord, Knyahinya, 

 Krahenberg, Pultusk, and many others which he mentions. 



The smaller stone was presented to the Vienna Collection, and 

 forms the subject of a few notes by Tschermak in an appendix to 

 Buchner's paper. He describes its characters, which nearly approach 

 those of the Pultusk meteorites. The black crust has the unusual 

 thickness of 1"5 mm., and incloses particles of nickel-iron, granules 

 of magnetic pyrites (troilite ?), and even lustreless chondra, which 

 may consist of chromite or picotite. The transparent minerals con- 

 stituting the chief mass of the stone are of three kinds: 1. Olivine, 

 recognized by its rectangular cleavage and few included minerals, 

 and by its contributing but little to the chondritic character of the 

 stone ; 2. Bronzite, in granules and aggregated crystals, showing 

 a prismatic cleavage, the latter being either barred or radiate, or 

 contorted and forming the greater number of the chondra ; and 

 3. Diallage, for such Tschermak believes to be a brown mineral, 

 forming angular fragments, which are found not to be rhombic, and 

 to resemble an augite. Chromite occurs in granules, and in larger 

 crystals than are met with in other meteorites. 



This interesting stone has not yet been analyzed. 



1877, June. — Cronstadt, Orange River Free State, South Africa. 



All that I have yet been able to gather respecting this occurrence 

 is, that a shower of stones fell near Cronstadt in June, 1877, in a 

 wooded district, so that few of them could be collected. One of 

 them is preserved in the British Museum. 



1877, October 13th, about 2 p.m. — Soko-Banja, N.E. of Alexinatz, 

 Servia.i [Long. 20° 53' E. of Greenwich; Lat. 43° 38' N.] 



Doll's paper, which appears in the " Transactions of the Austrian 

 Geological Society," contains two descriptions of the fall of meteor- 

 ites at Soko-Banja, drawn from two different sources. The first, 

 taken from the Servian weekly literary journal " Javor," published 

 at Neusatz, is written by an eye-witness of the occurrence, who 



1 E. Doll, Verhavdl. der K.K. Geolog. Rcichsavstalt, 1877, No. 16, 283. S. M. 

 Losanitch, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 1878, xi. 96. 



