THE ORIGIN OF THE EARTH. 



33 



carbons may be assigned to inorganic action within the asteroidal 

 body, the material being derived from the hydrogen and carbon gases 

 so abundantly occluded in meteorites and crystalline rocks, the requi- 

 site temperatures and pressures being supplied by the internal compres- 

 sion of the body. 



In these small bodies, then, it is perhaps possible to find that 



Fig. 11. — A partial section and a portion of the exterior of the Brenham (Haviland), 

 Kans., meteorite, showing, in close relations, a coarse crystallization of nickel- 

 iron and an intersegregation of metallic and non-metallic material, implying 

 that the same general conditions affected both forms of aggregation. Ward- 

 Coonley Collection. (From Ward.) 



extraordinary combination of conditions which the nature of the 

 meteorites implies. 



It remains to postulate a means of disruption and an agency of 

 dispersion competent to give the disrupted fragments the erratic 

 courses and the high velocities which meteorites possess, while at the 

 same time the structural features, sometimes rather perishable, escape 

 destruction by liquefaction or extreme pulverization. 



