456 M. Haidinger on the Original Formation of Aerolites. 



Certainly there is great difficulty in forming an idea where and 

 how fragments of genuine solid rocks (as meteorites undoubtedly 

 are) could be first violently broken from their parent repository 

 and then hurled into distant solar systems ; nevertheless their 

 characteristic fragmentary form, together with the cosmical velo- 

 city of their course, leaves no room for any other solution. So 

 daring a supposition, paying, however, due attention to Nature's 

 laws as far as they are known to us, must, however, from time to 

 time, provoke reiterated criticism. 



I thought it desirable therefore to give here a short conspectus 

 of such views concerning meteoric phenomena as have from time 

 to time crossed my mind, or been the subject of distinct commu- 

 nications to the Academy, though at the same time I freely 

 admit I may have been intruding into a region of natural science 

 for the investigation of which I am but very imperfectly prepared. 

 I must ask for some indulgence in this attempt to trace the out- 

 lines of views in some way different from current ones — the more 

 so since they are intended to establish merely a kind of pro- 

 gramme for more accurate investigations. 



In an earlier period of development in human society, the 

 " nonum prematur in annum" may have been more easily 

 obeyed than it is in our times. Accelerated publication, how- 

 ever, has also its advantages, as contemporaneous investigators 

 familiarized with the matter find in it a point of comparison for 

 their own either analogous or contradictory views. For myself, 

 some portion or other of my views have been more than once the 

 subject of conversation and epistolary intercourse. 



At least I hope I may have been successful in my endeavours 

 to follow the strict rules of scientific induction for arriving at 

 the result aimed at in this paper. During the whole course of 

 these considerations I have made it my duty implicitly to obey 

 the precept of our great master, Humboldt, that, " even within 

 merely conjectural regions, uncontroled or arbitrary opinions, 

 independent of induction, should never be allowed to prevail." 



Note. — Baron Reichenbach's estimate of an annual meteoric de- 

 posit on the surface of our globe, amounting to 450,000 (Vienna) 

 pounds, is certainly considerably over the mark. In his paper on this 



originally have been condensed from comet-dust ; that this is quite contrary 

 to M. Haidinger's opinion, I have good reason to believe. It may perhaps 

 appear a little difficult to believe that, were any small planet or satellite of 

 a planet to burst, some of the fragments would for ever be hurled 

 beyond the influence of the sun, — though, as in the case possibly of the 

 sixty asteroids, the original orbital conditions of the parent mass might 

 become a good deal modified. — R. P. G. 



