34 Meteorites and What they Teach us. — Hensoldt. 
of very perfect chondri, but the section also reveals a number 
of angular fragments. Bronzite chondri, recognizable by their 
peculiar fan-like or fibrous structures, are beautifully devel- 
oped. Many will remember that about ten years ago Dr. 0. 
Hahn, of Reutlingen, a lawyer by profession, rushed into print 
and insisted upon making himself ridiculous by the publica- 
tion of a bulky work with 32 photographic plates on organic 
remains in meteorites, which he pretended to have discovered. 
This worthy man, who had little petrographical knowledge, 
was entirely misled by the fibrous structure of these bronzite 
chondri, which is often very curious, reminding one of fossil 
corals, and he took great pains in describing no less than 
twenty-eight species of corals alone, besides many sponges, 
crinoids and what not in the organic line, which he had dis- 
covered in meteoric sections, but which nobody else could see 
in them. He was guided by accidental resemblances ; the 
things he observed were such as one might see in the clouds 
and anyone gifted Avith a little imagination will, if he looks 
long enough, discover corals, foraminifera, fossil fishes and 
even dromedaries in almost every section prepared from a 
chondritic meteorite. 
The Monroe meteorite, which fell in Cabarras county, 
North Carolina, in 1849, does not at first sight appear very 
chondritic, but if we carefully examine a thin section we find 
it to be almost entirely composed of chondri closely packed or 
welded together and somewhat pressed out of shape. Still 
more difficult is it to recognize the chondri in the meteorite 
of Aumale, Algeria, yet it is a chondrite and we can still dis- 
tinguish the parallel bars of the olivine, the coarse granula- 
tion of the augite, the striation of the feldspar and the radi- 
ating fibres of the bronzite. 
Chondritic structure, as already shown is peculiar to meteor- 
ites. We have nothing analogous in terrestrial rocks except 
in the oolitic limestones, but here due to entirely diff'erent 
causes. In the Portland oolite from England for instance, 
we have spherical deposits of carbonate of lime which have 
formed in concentric crusts around nuclei. These nuclei 
consist of sand-grains, and sand-grains also form the inter- 
stitial substance between the little globes. Such a section 
presents a strikingly beautiful appearance in polarized light, 
as the lively chromatic display of the quartz nuclei contrasts 
