36 Meteorites and What tJiey Teach, us. — Hensoldt 
sections of these meteorites suffices to convince us that they 
represent a totally different type, that they have nothing in 
common with the chondrites before described, and it so hap- 
pens that they agree in almost every particular with certain 
of our ash-rocks and tuffs. In the writer's opinion they can- 
not have originated in any manner differing fundamentally 
from that, which led to the formation of our compressed ter. 
restrial ash-rocks. In sections prepared from certain volcanic 
ash-beds in Central America, Arizona and California we have 
essentially the same structure and very nearly the same min- 
eralogical compos tion, the same angular fragments, the same 
detritus, the same color even ; and we might go on multiplying 
such examples of almost absolute coincidence. 
Another meteorite which will not fit in the accumulation- 
hypothesis and which greatly bothers the dust-people, is the 
famous meteorite of Rittersgriin, one of the most remarkable 
and beautiful meteorites,which fell in Saxony in the year 1164. 
It is composed of metallic iron and crystals of a beautiful 
yellowish green color, which at first were believed to be oli- 
vine but which are now known to be bronzite. Then we have 
meteorites of a basaltic structure, like that of Juvinas, which 
fell in France in 1821. It is chiefly composed of rods of tri- 
clinic feldspar (anorthite) and augite. Such crystals could 
only have originated during the very slow cooling of a molten 
mass under extreme pressure. Now the structure of the fam- 
ous Ovifak basalt is so similar to that of the Juvinas meteor- 
ite that it is almost impossible to distinguish, under the mi- 
croscope, the sections of the former from that of the latter. 
The Ovifak rock is composed of the same minerals, in the 
same proportion and in precisely the same development, viz., 
rods of anorthite, granules of augite and native iron. Native 
iron ! Where did that come from? What business has metal- 
lic iron in a terrestrial rock? Well, the basalt of Ovifak is 
the most remarkable terrestrial rock with which we are ac- 
quainted. Its discovery has been a great shock to the army 
of meteorite-collectors all over the world, a shock from which 
they have not even yet quite recovered, for now the presence of 
metallic iron can no longer be relied on as a test-feature of a 
meteorite. 
Previous to Nordenskj old's great discovery, non-artificial 
metallic iron had never been known to occur on this terres- 
