VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBSIDIANITES. 
Then, as regards their glassy nature, a note by A. Brezina* on an 
observed fall of a meteorite is particularly interesting. At Halle, 
in Saxony, during one evening in January, 1903, a number of people 
were startled by the glare of a meteor. The following morning a 
meteorite about the size of a fig was found lying on a piece of charred 
paper in the yard of a banking-house. It was glassy throughout, 
and resembled obsidian. Brezina says that this occurrence, and 
another which he quotes, must remove the doubt as to the aerolithic 
nature of tektites.f 
There are, however, some facts in connexion with the form of 
obsidianites which are equally difficult to explain, whether these 
bodies be aerolites or terrestrial products. The most striking thing 
in this respect is the characteristic form which distinguishes them 
from the other two groups of glassy bodies with which they are 
classed. Suess believes that the groups represent three distinct 
showers, and this appears to be the only logical explanation of the 
divergence of form and composition, more particularly noticed 
between moldavites and obsidianites (australites), under a meteoric 
hypothesis. 
Each shower must have been accompanied by certain local 
conditions, by the agency of which the distinctive forms of its units 
were assumed. 
It is difficult to imagine what this varying factor was, but it 
might be suggested, for instance, that it was a higher state of fusion 
in the case of the obsidianites, due to a greater original temperature 
produced on entry into the earth’s atmosphere, or to the difference 
in their chemical composition, which enabled the glassy fragments 
to be moulded into the characteristic forms, whilst the moldavites 
being less plastic, retained more or less their original fragmental 
shape. Some of the surface sculpturing is not necessarily a sign of 
a molten condition, for in a few of the obsidianites examined cooling 
has proceeded far enough to allow fracturing to take place, and the 
resulting surfaces are covered with superficial markings, indistinguish- 
able from some of those occurring on the original surface. Even if 
considered as volcanic ejectamenta, peculiar local conditions would 
have to be also conjectured to account for the divergence of form of 
the two groups. Suess’s idea of three meteoric showers infers con- 
temporaneity of all obsidianites in Australia and Tasmania, and, in 
the writer’s opinion, the acceptance of this view is essential to the 
theory of cosmic origin. The writer, in his paper on the “ Occurrence 
of so-called Obsidian Bombs in Australia,” was inclined to the belief 
that they were not all of the same age, basing it principally upon 
p. 41. 
‘UberTektite von beobachtetem Fall.” Anzeiger d. K. Akad, d. Wiss, Vienna, 1904, 
t This term was introduced by Professor F. E. Suess, to cover all the glassy bodies of 
doubtful origm. These he divided into Moldavites, Australites (= Obsidianites), and 
Billitomtas, in accordance with their geographical distribution. 
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