"pele's tears" 53 



greatest at the moment of impact and the body must certainly suffer deforma- 

 tion. On the other hand, if they had been heated, so that they could assume 

 their present form before entering the atmosphere, it would be expected that 

 the heat of atmospheric friction would cause the exterior to scale off and the 

 perfect form to be destroyed. 



Other suggestions concerning the genesis have been made by Gregory and 

 G. P. Merrill. Gregory has stated that these bodies may have been due to 

 lightning discharges in the great dust storms of Australia ; but this theory has 

 not received serious consideration, because it has neither the merit of satisfy- 

 ing the demand for distribution nor explaining the form and composition of 

 the bodies. 



In his article .-entitled "On the supposed origin of the moldavites and like 

 sporadic glasses from various sources," after examining various obsidian peb- 

 bles, moldavites, and billitonites, Merrill concludes with the statement that 

 "whatever may have been their original source, the Bohemian and Moravian 

 specimens are now simply water-worn pebbles of weathered glass, originally 

 etched by corroding vapors or solutions, the results being indistinguishable 

 from those produced by artificial etchings on obsidian with fluorhydric acid. 

 The Australian forms are likewise, to me, simply pebbles of glass which have 

 been water-worn or abraded by wind-blown sands. In their contours there is 

 nothing even suggestive of meteoric markings, nor do I find any semblance of 

 such an origin, so far as the surface markings alone are concerned, in the ex- 

 amples from Billiton." 4 He explains, however, that this statement is not to 

 be construed as meaning that he is opposed to the cosmic origin of these bodies. 



Comparison with similar Bodies 



Having thus briefly considered the australites, let us turn to some bodies of 

 similar form whose origin is established beyond a doubt. There have been 

 found two types of such bodies. One of these types, as mentioned by Mr. Sum- 

 mers, 5 has been taken from the smoke-boxes of locomotives, and the other is 

 found near Kilauea, Hawaii, in the form of "Pele's tears." The latter are 

 little masses of lava of various shapes, to which I believe Mr. Perret first 

 applied the name "Pele's tears" because of their relation to Pele's hair and the 

 tear-drop form of many of them. My attention was first attracted to these 

 through the kindness of Dr. T. A. Jaggar, and they seemed to show such a 

 marked similarity in form to certain of the australites that they may have an 

 important bearing on their origin. So far as observed, they are confined to a 

 small spatter cone close to the main crater of Kilauea. They vary from one- 

 sixteenth to about one inch in length and in diameter according to the shape. 

 They exhibit various forms. Such shapes as rings, half rings, pears, tear- 

 drops, hearts, spheres, spindles, and dumb-bells are common. In one case an 

 oval central body surrounded by a ring, which seems, however, to be more or 

 less distinct from it, was found. They consist of a pumiceous dark brown 

 glass, with a smooth glazed coating covering the surface of the body where the 

 original surface is unbroken. A little evidence of flow structure may be seen 

 on the surface in some cases, but no such perfect button forms as exhibited by 

 some of the australites have been found (see figures). 



* G. P. Merrill : Proc. U. S. National Museum, vol. 40. 1911, p. 486. 

 5 Loc. cit. 



V— Bull. Gbol. Soc. Am., Vol. 27, 1915 



