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THE GEOLOGIST. 



FOREIGN C 0 RUES POND EN CE. 



General Considerations on Meteorites. By Director W. Haidinger. 

 (Vienna Imperial Academy of Sciences, March 14, 1861.) 



The specimen of the meteorite which fell May 19, 1858, at Kakowa 

 (Banat), and which Count Coronini, then governor of the province, 

 transmitted to the Imperial Geological Institute at Vienna, and which 

 afterwards was transferred to the Imperial Museum, gave the first 

 impulsion to a renewed study of these highly interesting substances, 

 and to the completion of the collection of meteorites in the Imperial 

 Museum, by exchange and otherwise. By this way specimens were 

 obtained from Europe (Tula, St. Denis-Westram, Trenzano), from 

 India (Allahabad, Assam, Pegu, Segowlee, Shalka), and from North 

 America (Nebraska), together with valuable information concern- 

 ing these phenomena, while MM. Haidinger and Beichenbach made 

 them a subject of theoretical investigation, the results of which 

 were published in the " Proceedings of the Vienna Academy," and in 

 several German periodicals. Numerous and partly accurate as the 

 statements on this matter are, the establishment of a complete theory 

 of meteorites, and of the phenomena attending them, would still be 

 premature. 



Several of Director Haidinger's theoretical views have been lately 

 stated independently by Professor Lawrence Smith, of Louisville, 

 Kentucky ; others have met with more or less positive contradiction. 



Two objects offer themselves for scientific consideration. 1. The 

 phenomena connected with the appearance of meteorites within the 

 boundaries of our globe. 2. The consequences to be deduced from 

 the study of the metallic and stony meteorites in themselves, especially 

 as to their more or less crystalline structure. 



The meteor observed by Dr. Schettczyk on November 28, 1859, at 

 Strakonitz (Bohemia), appeared at first in the form of a star, and 

 gradually increased to the size of a fiery ball, which at last exploded 

 without (at least so far as hitherto known) being followed by the fall of 

 any solid substance. At New Concord, Ohio, on May 1, 1860, a similar 

 phenomenon was very accurately observed ; but no mention is made of 

 its first appearance in the shape of a star. The resistance opposed to 

 the igneous globes by the atmospheric air, compressed during the 

 whole course of their rapid passage, is particularly worth consideration. 

 A twisting hurricane moves at the rate of 92 English miles per hour 

 (134-72 feet, Vienna measure, in one second) ; a point of our globe's sur- 

 face under the equator, under perfect calm and horizontal atmospheric 

 pressure of above 1800 Vienna pounds per square-foot (while the 

 same pressure in the above mentioned hurricane does not exceed 32 - 81 

 pounds), accomplishes its rotatory movement at the rate of 1464-7 feet 

 per second ; while in the same time, the meteors pass generally through 



