﻿and Acoustic Phenomena attending the Fall of Meteorites. 259 



9. Professor J. G. Galle. — This distinguished astronomer has 

 published a paper on the meteoric fall of Pultusk, January 30, 

 1863, in the Transactions of the Silesian Society for 1868. 

 The views of the celebrated Director of the Breslan Observatory 

 are, in many particulars, concordant with those of von Haidin- 

 ger, as he says (p. 28), "The mode of expression generally used, 

 by which the division of a meteor at the moment of extinction is 

 designated by the terms 'explosion' or 'diffraction/ is, for rea- 

 sons subsequently to be discussed, improper and inadequate to 

 the real fact. We can only admit a dispersion of the meteoric par- 

 tides which have arrived as separate bodies at the point of extinction. 

 This supposition alone admits an explanation of the acoustic 

 phenomena and of their peculiar series, beginning with one or 

 more chief detonations." The meteorites of Paltusk fell nearly 

 vertically from the point of dispersion. The inclination of their 

 cosmical course to the horizon was 44°. Compared with fig. 6, 

 the altitude of the entrance into the atmosphere A B, the alti- 

 tude at the term of the cosmical course CD (C being the point 

 of dispersion), the distance B D, the inclination of the cosmical 

 course C AE, stand in the following proportion : — 



AB. CD. BD. CAE. 



Pultusk . . 40 5i 25 44° 



Orgueil . . 3-975 2394 7*815 11° 26' 



Geographical miles. 

 Professor Galle says about the origin of meteorites, " What 

 may have been the origin of such a meteoritic swarm entering 

 the solar system with a velocity of one to two miles per second, 

 is a problem still more difficult to solve than the origin of the 

 periodical swarms of falling stars, whose connexion with the 

 comets has been ascertained by Professor Schiaparellr's brilliant 

 discovery, and which, on account of their nearly parabolical 

 orbit, may be considered to be cosmical clouds, endowed with a 

 small power of movement, and coming at some point or other 

 within the solar sphere of attraction /' And as to their velo- 

 city, "It is at least one or two miles per second less than the 

 average velocity of falling stars, as admitted by Professor Schia- 

 p;irelli ; the orbit through the solar system is therefore an hy- 

 perbola." 



10. Dr. G. vom Rath has published a notice concerning the fall 

 of Pultusk, especially with regard to the chemical and mineralo- 

 gical constitution of the meteorites, of which he had occasion to 

 examine above 1200 single specimens, and to compare them 

 with those preserved in the museums of Bonn and Berlin. 

 Fig. 1 a, b, c of this notice reproduces the anterior surface of a 

 meteorite weighing 870 grms., on which the author (p. 4) com- 



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