A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF AUSTRALITES. 
31 
that it would not vastly more than cover the area of the globe, 
not to mention a small patch on its surface, such as the area 
where Moldavites occur, or even Australia. 
A meteorite shower must surely fall, in any case, in the 
form of a band right across or round the world on account of 
the rotation of the globe, even if the band be a narrow one, 
though, of course, sporadic meteorites occur constantly quite 
irregularly. 
I must here again emphatically draw attention to the different 
ages of Australites requiring the visit of more than one shower, 
and their practical restriction to Australia, and not even all of 
that, there being quite a wide belt of tropic between the Billi- 
tonites to the north and the Australites to the south. 
Whilst, last and most particularly, meteorites never have 
any regular shape, and it would be at least curious and requiring 
a very precise explanation to account for such a very marked 
exception as Australites present, exhibiting as they do so few 
and such definite forms, and such remarkable uniformity in these 
forms. 
I see in the West Australian report of Professor Ross's lecture 
to the Astronomical Society that “ Meteorites arc generally 
pointed, the pointed end having been downwards in the passage 
through the atmosphere. A number of ridges radiate only from 
the pointed part and are due to the flowing backward of the 
molten material." 1 base my statement on the following para- 
graph from " An Introduction to the Study of Meteorites," by 
L. Fletcher, Director of the Natural History Museum, South 
Kensington : “ As picked up, complete and covered with crust, 
meteorites are not spherical, nor have they any definite shape ; 
in fact, they are always irregular angular fragments such as 
would be obtained on breaking up a rock presenting no regularity 
of structure.’’ 
Again, another unanswerable argument against their meteoric 
origin is the occurrence of large Australites, quite normally shaped, 
consisting really of only a shell enclosing a beautiful glazed 
cavity, sometimes with a thin fragile septum (Plate XV III, Figs. 
1 and 2). The glazing of the interior of these cavities shows the 
surface produced by this glass when able to cool from a perfectly 
fused condition, without interference by air currents or other 
disturbing factors. Compare the outside surface of these Austral- 
ites with the pictures of the inner surface of these hollow forms, 
and I think you must agree with me in inferring that the outside 
glaze has also been caused by at least a partial if not a perfect 
fusion. The shells are too thick to justify us in calling them 
bubbles, we can only call them hollow Australites or blebs of 
bubbles. These could surely not be imagined to have come from 
space nor to have been formed in our own atmosphere by any 
