444 M. Haidiuger on the Original Formation of Aerolites. 



highest authority, rather for the purpose of respectful study, than 

 to be made the subject of control or contradiction. Proceeding 

 from simple correlations, I humbly venture to enunciate some 

 few considerations respecting the formation of meteorites, which, 

 eminently diversified as they are if taken individually, I must 

 yet consider, along with Sir David Brewster, Prof. Laurence 

 Smith, and other naturalists, to be fragments of a larger or more 

 voluminous body. 



The formation of crystals requires a movement of molecules. 

 This is a general and most irrefragable theorem. We see 

 crystals deposited from gaseous and liquid solutions, or wherever 

 the single molecules have acquired mobility under the influence 

 of high temperature, as in substances in a state of fusion. 



Whenever solid bodies are undergoing metamorphic changes, 

 crystals form out of pulverulent, as well as out of relatively solid 

 substances, when they undergo influences that make their inti- 

 mate particles moveable. We do not know that crystallization 

 can take place under any other circumstances, so long as the laws 

 of nature, as now known to us, remain in force. We are entitled 

 therefore to conclude that these bodies, coming from cosmical 

 space into our atmosphere, took their point of departure from 

 matter either in a gaseous, liquid, or pulverulent condition. The 

 real point of departure then is matter in the form of an impal- 

 pable powder, assumed to be the initial deposit of any substance 

 suspended in a gaseous or liquid solution. 



Meteoric stones, almost pulverulent in their nature, with opake, 

 nearly earthy fracture (as those of Reichenbaclr's second family), 

 others whitish, without rounded particles, or dark-coloured (as 

 those of Bokkeveld), are connected, by a long series of inter- 

 mediate forms, with the highly crystalline meteorites of Chas- 

 signy, Juvenas, Shalka, and the solid compact ones of Seres, 

 Tabor, Chantonnay, Segowlee, Parnallee, &c. In the same way 

 a long series of structural transitions connect the non-crystalline 

 meteoric irons of the Cape of Good Hope and Hemalga with the 

 beautifully crystalline varieties of Agram, Elbogen, Lenarto, 

 Lockport, Red River, Nebraska, ending with the most perfect 

 type, that of Braunau. The crystals of olivine contained in the 

 meteorites of Hainholz, Brahin, Atacama, and Krasnoyarsk prove 

 the power of crystallization to have remained active during a long 

 period of time. 



With our present knowledge of natural laws, these character- 

 istically crystalline formations could not possibly have come 

 into existence except under the action of high temperature com- 

 bined with powerful pressure ; though we have to search in vain 

 for a heated cosmical space, as supposed by Poisson. 



Tf we suppose within the glacial cold of space the existence of 



