80 Meteorites and What they Teach us. — Hensoldt. 
equivalent to a column of water 2,000 feet high or a rock- 
stratum of about 700 feet thickness. Wherever we find en- 
closures of liquid carbon dioxide in terrestrial rocks — and we 
find them frequently — we may take it for granted that the 
formation of those rocks took place deep in the earth's crust 
under the gigantic weight of superincumbent masses. Cavi- 
ties containing CO2 often occur in basalts and other so-called 
"basic" lavas, which are known to be derived from deep-seat- 
ed reservoirs beneath volcanoes, where besides the weight of 
tremendous rock-masses above we have the compressing force 
of great quantities of elastic vapor held in confinement, while 
in the so-called acid lavas(lavas rich in silica)of which there is 
very conclusive evidence that they are formed at no such very 
great depths, the presence of liquified CO2 is extremely rare. 
The fact that these cavities are often contained in the quartz of 
granites may be regarded as a most important evidence that 
the granites have been formed deep in the earth's crust, under 
conditions of enormous pressure and we never find this liquid 
in sedimentary strata or any other materials which are unlike- 
ly to have been exposed to extreme pressure during their for- 
mation. 
But how about extra-terrestrial rock-masses? How about 
meteorites in which we find liquified carbonic acid in millions 
of minutes cavities? Could they have originated under circum- 
stances totally different from those which prevail on this 
globe? Could the CO2 in them have been condensed to a liquid 
without extreme pressure? Certainly not; this would be little 
short of a miracle and as we cannot conceive the possibility 
of such a great pressure in a meteorite, weighing only a few 
pounds, we are driven to the conclusion that those bodies at 
one time of their history, existed in the interior of mightier 
masses, planets perhaps, of which they are the fragments. 
It has, as we know,been ascertained by the means of the spec- 
roscope that the fixed stars are for the greatest part composed 
of elements identical with those which prevail on this globe 
and that most of the planets that are within our observation 
are composed of materials very similar to those which consti- 
tute the earth we have strong grounds for believing. Then we 
know that the sun's temperature is so enormous that all the 
non-metallic elements and many of the metallics are in a con- 
dition of vapor and the rest of the metals in a state of fiery 
