SIXTH MEETING. y 



Messrs. J. S. Monahan and Andrew F. Hunter were elected 

 Members. 



Donations and exchanges since last meeting, 25, including 

 a Hand Grenade and Coal Torpedo made in Toronto by 

 Southern Refugees during the late Civil War, presented by 

 Mr. Daniel Lamb, on whose behalf a paper on the subject 

 was read by the Secretary. 



Mr. J. A. Livingston read a paper on " The Purposes of 

 Comets." 



He exhibited a globular body about six inches in diameter, 

 composed of quartz which he asserted was a meteorite. It 

 was split in two, was hollow and had quartz crystals like a 

 geode. 



Mr. Chamberlain enquired whether there was any evidence 

 for meteorites composed of quartz. 



Mr. Armstrong stated that in a conversation which he had 

 with Mr. Proctor, the latter had said, that, so far, nothing had 

 been found in meteorites but metals or the oxides of metals. 

 This alleged meteorite looked as if it had been formed by the 

 action of water. 



Mr. Elvins said that in catalogues of meteorites, they were 

 divided into two classes, metallic and non-metallic. All that 

 he had seen were metallic. He would like to ask whether 

 such stones, as that Mr. Livingston had exhibited, do not 

 exist -scattered among rocks. 



Mr. Macdougall said that the matter had not come under 

 his notice, so that he could not answer the question very well. 

 He had never met with anything similar to that exhibited that 

 could be said to be of meteoric origin, 



Mr. Harvey referred to the passage in the Roman historian 

 (Livy) that in a certain year it rained stones. From this and 

 other accounts it would appear that such falls of meteorites 

 were more common in ancient times than at present. 



