176 



Marvels of the Universe 



weather, and have no special preference for thunderstorms, although their arrival may occasionally 

 happen to occur in thunderj' weather. 



Lnlike the fossil cuttle-bones, which may be best described as cigar-shaped, ineteorites are 

 usually more or less round, certainly never elongated. They are sometimes of stony matter, 

 sometimes of nearly pure iron. Both kinds are shown on page 174. The mushroom-shaped 

 object with radiating furrows is a " stony meteorite," which fell at Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, 

 m 1881. The squarer lump, with characteristic surface-marking and a lustrous appearance, is 



made of nearly pure iron. Weighing 

 forty-four pounds, this " bolt from the 

 blue " feU near Vizagapatam, India, 

 in 1870. 



Returning to fossil wind, the accom- 

 panying picture shows a slab of sand- 

 stone, which, in long-past ages, formed 

 part of a sandy sea-shore. A gentle 

 breeze rippled the water as it lapped 

 on the beach, and the moving water 

 rippled the sand beneath it. The little 

 wavelets should have travelled land- 

 ward, leaving the slender ridges mark- 

 ing their course ; but the wind was 

 blowing obliquely and, as a result, the 

 ripples came ashore in a slanting way, 

 and therefore rebounded in the opposite 

 direction ; hence the cross-rippling of 

 the sand, so beautifully exhibited in 

 the specimen. But in the illustration 

 on page 177, the wavelets have come 

 straight ashore, and consequently 

 have fallen back in a parallel series of 

 outgoing ripples, and there is no possi- 

 bility of distinguishing between the 

 effects of incoming and retreating 

 waves, one series of corrugations being 

 alone produced. 



Fossil sunshine is further illustrated 

 in the picture on page 173. The long 

 slab of stone was once the muddy 

 shore of a salt-lake, where now the 

 Manchester Ship Canal exists. The 

 climate was that of a tropical desert, 

 and the scorching ra}'S of the sun caused the briny water to evaporate and deposit aU over the 

 shore little crj^stals of salt, hke dwarf pyramids in shape. The same process is happening now on 

 the shores of the Dead Sea, in Palestine, and the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The salt-crystals 

 are scattered in all positions, some on edge and some down flat on their square bases, with the 

 sloping edges of the pyramid looking hke the letter X. 



The upper specimen on page 177 shows slender suncracks as well as ripple-marks. Many millions 

 of years have elapsed since the wind rippled that water and the blazing sun dried and cracked the 

 sand after the ripples had been impressed upon it, on an Irish shore. In the lower specimen, the 



Pholo hpl 



[Russell F. CkcintuU. 



FOSSIL WIND. 



The action of wind upon the wavelets lapping the sea-shore. The 

 wind was blowing obliquely, so that the waves came on shore one way and 

 rebounded in the opposite direction. 1 he moving water rippled the sand 

 and left on it this beautiful pattern. 



