169 
9 ’Nov. 30, 1910. The Queensla.nd Naturalist. 
Now the otherwise special character of the meteoric- 
iron component of the iron meteorites gives rise to the 
exhibition on their part of a peculiar structural conforma- 
tion, or usually so, for there is a very small class of meteorites, 
named ataxites, in which the entire body, or the greater 
part of it, does not exhibit this pervading structure. 
This structure is really the outcome of crystalization,. 
or of a phenomenon akin to it, and displays itself in the 
metallic-iron and nickel-complexes assuming, under the 
circumstances conditioning the formation or transforma- 
tion of the meteorites, coils, beams or bands, etc., inter- 
secting one another in a regular manner, resulting in the 
skeleton-structure, or surface, exhibiting symmetrical planes. 
Now these conform to two figures, the octahedron and 
the hexahedron, that characterize a like number of iron- 
meteorites, and that therefore are distinguished by the 
names of Octahedrite and Hexahedrite-Siderites, and, revert- 
ing to the foregoing Ataxites, they are thus separated into 
three classes. 
When the iron meteorites (whether octa or hexa- 
hedrite), or any portion of them, are cut through and 
polished, and especially when the surface is acted upon 
by hydrochloric acid the fact of this structure is shown 
by the presentment of a well-known figured pattern, known 
as Widmanstattens figures, in which we may distinguish 
also what are styled Richenhacli’ s lamellae and Neumann^s 
Lines. 
Another feature which is inherent m the polished 
surface is an unliability to become tarnished. 
Again, generally speaking, stony and iron meteorites 
alike exhibit surfaces of fracture and surface-fusion ; the 
one due to friction in passing through the earth’s atmosphere, 
the other evidently arising in many instances before they 
have been subjected to the resistance that this has afforded 
to their transit. 
[The conditions experienced by n:eteorites in their 
movement through space, affecting their path, their rate 
of progress and. their temperature were here alluded to.] 
Now with regard to relative frequency in which the 
different kinds of nieteorites occur, it may be stated that 
the Royal Naturhistorischen Hofmuseums of Vienna 
contained in 1902, according to Friedrich Berwerth, 1,850 
specimens, representing 560 falls. Of these specimens 209 
amounting to 2553-491 kilogrammes were iron m_eteorites,, 
23 amounting to 122-033 kg. were meso-siderites (iron and 
stone), and 328 amounting to 637*388 kg. meteorites of stone.. 
(1 kilo=2|lbs. adv.) — c/., Annalen des K.K. Naturhist 
Hofmus. XVIII., 1, p. 46, 1903. 
Australia itself has not contributed to any very great 
extent to our knowledge of meteorites. So far as the 
