THE DENILIQUIN OE, BAREATTA METEOBITE. 101 



most readily oxidizable metal, or that the circumstances were 

 unfavourable to such combination. 



We are likewise justified in inferring that water was absent also. 



Usually, meteorites are hot externally when picked up soon 

 after their fall, but at times they are not. In one well authen- 

 ticated case the mass was hot externally, but excessively cold 

 internally — the interior still retaining the intense cold of space ; 

 while the surface had become heated from the friction in its passage 

 through the earth's atmosphere. 



Meteorites are always coated with a more or less enamel-like 

 crust. When there is an absence of iron silicates this crust is 

 sometimes glassy and colourless ; at times it is coloured, but 

 usually it is black. 



There is no doubt that the crust has been formed during the 

 passage of the meteorite through the air, since the fragments 

 which have become detached by an explosion are also thus coated, 

 And when we recollect that the meteorite enters our atmosphere 

 with a velocity of from seven hundred to two thousand five hundred 

 miles per minute, or from twelve to forty miles per second, we 

 need not be at all surprised at its surface being thus fused ; for 

 on entering our atmosphere its velocity is at once retarded — in 

 fact, its motion is virtually arrested by the resistance of the 

 atmosphere, and, as a natural consequence of this, an intense 

 degree of heat is immediately generated quite sufficient to fuse 

 the surface, from which fluid matter flies off. The brilliant light 

 emitted by a falling meteor is due to this, and the luminous 

 streak left behind in its path is caused by the streaming of 

 incandescent matter from it. 



Explosions are frequently heard during the fall of a meteorite. 

 These are doubtless due to the high state of tension in which the 

 different portions must necessarily be; for the intense heat 

 generated must greatly expand the outer portion, while the inner 

 still remains as contracted as in the cold of space ; when, there- 

 fore, a portion of the shell has become so expanded that it can 

 overcome the resistance of cohesion, it will violently detach itself 

 from the cold inner kernel, and fly oft' with explosive violence. 



The pitted surface so common on meteorites is probably due to 

 the same action on a smaller scale. 



I will now pass on to the more immediate subject of this note. 



THE DENILIQTJIN METEORITE. 



It is one belonging to the third class, i.e., it is a mixture of 

 earthy silicates with metallic substances. 



Externally it is coated with a blackish fused skin ; this has 

 changed to a rusty brown in parts, from the formation of oxide of 

 iron. 



From the fractured surfaces it is at once noticed that the outer 

 layers have a strongly marked laminated structure to the depth 



