Lazarus Fletcher

“ Though the surface of a meteoric stone becomes very hot during the early part of the flight through the air, it is cooled again during the later and slower part of the flight. Meteorites are generally found to be warm to the touch if immediately dug out; at the moment of their impact they are not hot enough to char woody fibre on which they chance to fall, nor is the surface then soft, for terrestrial matter with which the surface comes into contact makes no impression upon the meteorite. ”

“ Where many stones fall at the same time they are generally distributed over a large area elongated in the direction of the flight of the luminous meteor, and the largest stones generally travel farthest. ”

“ The number of stones which reach the ground from one fireball is very variable. In each of the two Yorkshire falls only one stone was found; the Guernsey County meteor yielded 30; at Toulouse, as many as 350 are estimated to have fallen; at Hessle, over 500; at Knyahinya, more than 1000; at L’Aigle, from 1000 to 2000; at both Pultusk and Mocs no fewer than 100,000 are estimated to have reached the earth’s surface. The largest single mass seen to fall is one of those which came down at Knyahinya, Hungary, in 1866, and weighed 547 ℔ ”

“ Meteoritic falls are independent of thunderstorms and all other terrestrial circumstances; they occur at all hours of the day and night, and at all seasons of the year; they favour no particular latitudes. ”

“ Meteorites are almost invariably found to be completely covered with a thin crust such as would be caused by intense heating of the material for a short time; its thinness shows the slight depth to which the heat has had time to penetrate. ”

“ They are presumably cold and invisible when they enter the earth’s atmosphere, and become heated and visible during their passage through the air; doubtless the greater part of the superficial material flicks off as the result of the sudden heating and is left behind floating in the air as the trail of the meteor. ”

“ The area of the earth’s surface occupied by towns and villages being comparatively small, the probability of a shower of stones falling within a town is extremely minute; the likelihood of a living creature being struck is still more remote. ”

“ In the large group of chondritic stones, chondrules or spherules, some of which can only be seen under the microscope while others reach the size of a walnut, are embedded in a matrix apparently made up of minute splinters such as might result from the fracture of the chondrules themselves. ”

“ For meteoric irons of cubic structure the percentage of nickel is lower than 6 or 7; for those of octahedral structure it is higher than 6 or 7; the plates of kamacite are thinner, and the structure therefore finer the higher the percentage of that metal. A considerable number of meteoric irons, however, show no crystalline structure at all, and have percentages of nickel both below and above 7 ”

“ The larger of the Cranbourne masses, now in the British Museum (Natural History) , before rusting weighed 3 1/2 tons; the largest of the masses brought by Lieut. Peary from western Greenland weighs 36 1/2 tons. A mass found at Bacubirito in Mexico is 13 ft. long, 6 ft. wide and 5 ft. thick, and is estimated to weigh 50 tons.
From observations of the path and time of flight of the luminous meteor it is calculated that meteorites enter the earth’s atmosphere with absolute velocities ranging from 10 to 45 m. ”