420 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
FOREIGN COREESPONDENCE. 
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, Treuzano), from 
India (Allahabad, Assam, Pegu, Segowlee, Shalka), and from North 
America (Nebraska), together with valuable information concern- 
ing these phenomena, while MM. Haidinger anS Reichenbach 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 b 
premature. 
Several of Director Haidinger's theoretical views have been latel 
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 j 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 1 464*7 feet 
per second ; while in the same time, the meteors psiss generally through 
