166 Falling Stars and Meteorites. 



niany ways, and the peculiar markings, caused apparently by the 

 crystalline condition of the metal, are often very beautifully 

 shown by irregular oxidation. Some specimens are covered 

 with lines, parallel, and crossing each other with extreme regu- 

 larity, resulting in a beautiful pattern. Others are less regular, 

 but equally beautiful. Many have smooth blebs in the interior, 

 hollow spaces once filled with pyrites which have fallen or de- 

 composed out, leaving a perfectly smooth cavity. In some, real 

 stones or foreign substances, more or less different from the 

 mass of the meteorite, are buried within the mass ; some are 

 enclosed, and show from their angular surface how completely 

 foreign they must have been ; others are only partially buried, 

 portions of them being outside. It is difficult to conceive how 

 these may have been packed into their places. 



One of the most singular of the specimens is part of a stone 

 that fell at Tula, in Russia, in 1846. The crystalline structure 

 was first observed in polishing a part of this specimen, which 

 weighs 71 lbs. The original mass weighed 542 lbs. 



The stones have sometimes fallen in showers. This was the 

 case in France with some of those that have no metal, but con- 

 sist almost entirely of felspathic stone. In the national museum 

 at Prague are several large meteorites, one of which is a 

 stone seen to fall. It is entirely melted on one side, and un- 

 changed on the other. The melted side is quite round and 

 smooth, and is black to the thickness of about one-sixteenth of 

 an inch. 



The various facts above stated are but a few out of a rich 

 variety in reference to this curious subject, but they are suffi- 

 cient to suggest some considerations as to their meaning, and 

 also as to their bearing on the condition of those vast spaces 

 that occur between tho recognized and known bodies that 

 make up our planetary system. It is an idea, not a little start- 

 ling, when first presented, that besides the planets long known, 

 and those distant ones recently discovered, and scarcely visible 

 to the naked eye ; besides those numerous asteroids or minute 

 planets, almost all discovered during the present century, but 

 whose nun i liti- is constantly increasing, and will soon perhaps 

 mount to a hundred; besides the satellites, which are much 

 more numerous than was once thought; besides those wandering 

 comets, lometimes whirling with incredible rapidity close to tho 

 sun, and then passing oil* for centuries or even thousands of 

 years, la/.ily Ira. spaco as they cross the orbits of tho 



various planets, and Bomei i in. -s reaching the outskirts of our sys- 

 tem, far beyond the most- distant known planet; — that besides 

 all these, there are also belts consisting of numberless smaller 

 fragments of matter, some metallic, others earthy, and only 

 made evident to our senses when by some chance they enter 



