424 Dr. Walter Flight — On Meteorites. 



the so-called Brick-earths and Loess of such valleys as the Thames, 

 the Somme, the Seine and their tributaries. They are simply the 

 flood loams laid down by the same river that deposited the valley 

 gravels" (Prehistoric Europe, p. 130). Again, he says, "The size 

 of the stones and the quantity of the material constituting what 

 are called high and low level gravels sufficiently indicate the great 

 transporting power of the Pleistocene rivers (say 'floods' — H. H. H.), 

 while the Brick-earths with their delicate land shells covering all 

 the gravels, and running up the valley slopes so as to cap the 

 summits of hills far above the level reached by the highest river 

 gravels, proves the former existence of floods, as Professor Prestwich 

 has pointed out, of extraordinary magnitude" {id. p. 132-3). 



I will conclude with a sentence from a paper of Mr. Flower, 

 which sums up my own view admirably. He says of the forces 

 which spread the surface deposits over our valleys, '-'We know 

 nothing of them, except from their results ; but whatever they may 

 have been, it seems quite certain they ai-e not ascribable to fluviatile 

 agency, and I am therefore disposed, with the French geologists, to 

 attribute them to some powerful cataclysmal action, perhaps of short 

 duration, and several times repeated." 



In the next paper I shall consider the evidence of the angular 

 drift of the South of Eng-land and North of France. 



VII. — Supplement to a Chapter in the History of Meteorites. 



By Walter Flight, D.Sc, P.G.S. 



{Continued from p. 362.) 



Supposed Organic Eemains in Meteorites, 1880-1882. 



At the end of the year 1880, Dr. 0. Hahn, of Reutlingen, a lawyer 

 by calling, published a big work entitled Die Meteoriten (Chondrite) 

 und ihre Organismen mit 32 Tafeln pJiotograpkischer Ahhildimgen 

 (1880, Tubingen: H. Laupp), by which he claimed to have shown 

 the presence in meteoric rocks of sponges, corals, and crinoids. A 

 statement of his views was read before a meeting of the Geological 

 Society the same summer. Early this year Dr. D. F. Weinland 

 published a paper in support of these views, TJeber die in Meteoriten 

 entdeekten Thierreste. Illustrated with two woodcuts (1882, 

 Esslingen : Gr. Frohner). The question was thoroughly gone into 

 in a scientific way by Prof. Carl Vogt, of Geneva, and the conclusions 

 at which he arrived are contained in a paper entitled Les pretendus 

 Organismes des Meteorites, published 1882, Geneve : H. Georg. It 

 is shown that Dr. Hahn had no foundation for his conclusions ; that 

 all the pretended organic structures are purely inorganic ; and that 

 in no single case do they present the microscopic structure of the 

 organisms for which they have been mistaken — such as crinoids, 

 corals, and sponges. See also Dr. Laurence Smith on the subject in 

 the Amer. Jour. Sc. 1882, February, 156. 



