Part 3

In the case of the Butsura fall of May 12, 1861,[12] fragments of the stone were picked up three or four miles apart, and, wonderful to say, it was possible to reconstruct with much certainty the portion of the meteorite to which they once belonged: a model of the reconstructed portion is shown in the case. Two of the fragments, [Sidenote: Pane 4a.] in other respects fitting perfectly together, are even on the faces of the junction now coated with a black crust, showing that one disruption took place when the meteorite had a high velocity; two other fragments found some miles apart fitted perfectly, and were neither of them incrusted at the surface of fracture, thus indicating another disruption at a time when the velocity of the meteorite had been so far reduced that the material of the new faces was not blackened through the generation of heat. Sometimes, as in the case of the meteorite of Orgueil, the fragments reach the ground before the detonation is heard, proving that the fracture has taken place at a part of the course where the velocity of the meteorite was considerably greater than that of the sound-vibrations (1100 feet a second).

[Sidenote: The detonations.]

23. The sudden condensation of air in front of the meteorite, the consequent generation of heat and expansion of the outer shell, have been held to account not only for the _break-up_ of the meteorite into fragments, but partly also for the _crash like that of thunder_ which is a usual accompaniment of the fall. Others have referred this noise solely to the sudden rush of air into the space traversed by the meteorite in the early part of the course. It has, however, now been discovered that the mere flight of a projectile through the air with a velocity exceeding that of sound (1100 feet a second) is itself sufficient to cause a loud detonation; neither explosion, like that of a bomb-shell, nor simple fracture of the meteorite by reason of pressure or sudden heat, is a necessary preliminary to the production of the loud noise. It is found, in fact, that when a projectile is fired with high initial velocity, say 2350 feet a second, an observer near the path of the projectile begins to distinguish two detonations as soon as his distance from the cannon reaches 500 feet; the first of them, a sharp one, appears to come from that part of the projectile's path which is nearest to the observer, and travels with the velocity of the projectile; the later and duller one appears to come from the cannon itself, and travels with the velocity of sound. If the projectile is intercepted near the cannon, only a single detonation is heard by an observer in the same position as before, and it travels at the rate of 1100 feet a second. If the initial velocity of the projectile is less than that of sound, only a single detonation is heard, and it starts from the cannon.

The rolling sound, which follows the detonation of a meteorite, is due, as in the case of thunder, to echoes from the ground and the clouds.

The detonations due to the different members of a swarm of meteorites will combine to form a single detonation unless they are separated by perceptible intervals of time.

[Sidenote: The sounds heard after the loud detonations.]

24. After the detonation, sounds are generally heard which have been variously likened to the flapping of the wings of wild geese, the bellowing of oxen, Turkish music, the roaring of a fire in a chimney, the noise of a carriage on the pavement, and the tearing of calico: these sounds are probably due to the whirling and oscillation of the fragments while traversing the air, with small velocity, near the observers, and correspond to the hiss or hum observed in the case of a projectile travelling with a velocity less than that of sound.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The chemical elements found in meteorites.]

25. As to the _kinds of elementary matter_[13] of which meteorites are composed, about one-third, and those the most common, of the elements at present recognised as constituents of the earth's crust have been met with: no new elementary body has been discovered.

The most frequent or plentiful in their occurrence are:--

Aluminium Calcium Carbon Iron Magnesium Nickel Oxygen Phosphorus Silicon Sulphur:

while, less frequently or in smaller quantities, are found:

Antimony Arsenic Chlorine Chromium Cobalt Copper Hydrogen Lithium Manganese Nitrogen Potassium Sodium Strontium Tin Titanium Vanadium.

[Sidenote: Elements present only in minute quantity.]

26. In addition to the above, the existence of minute traces of several other elements has been announced; of these special mention may be made of gallium, gold, iridium, lead, platinum and silver.

[Sidenote: Both simple and combined.]

27. Most of the above elements are present in the combined state; the iron occurring chiefly in combination with nickel, and the phosphorus almost always combined with both nickel and iron. Some of them are found also in their elementary condition: perhaps hydrogen and nitrogen; carbon, both as indistinctly crystallised diamond and as graphitic carbon, the latter being generally amorphous, but occasionally in cubic crystals (cliftonite); free phosphorus has been found in Saline Township; free sulphur has been observed in one of the carbonaceous meteorites, but may have been separated from the unstable sulphides since the entry into our atmosphere.

[Sidenote: Some of the constituents are new to mineralogy.]

[Sidenote: Pane 4k.]

28. Of the constituents of meteorites, the following are by many mineralogists regarded as being at present unrepresented among the terrestrial minerals:--

_Cliftonite_, a cubic form of graphitic carbon, _Phosphorus_, _Various alloys of nickel and iron_, _Moissanite_, silicide of carbon, _Cohenite_, carbide of iron and nickel; corresponding to Cementite, carbide of iron, found in artificial iron, _Schreibersite_, phosphide of iron and nickel, _Troilite_, proto-sulphide of iron, _Oldhamite_, sulphide of calcium, _Osbornite_, oxy-sulphide of calcium and titanium or zirconium, _Daubréelite_, sulphide of iron and chromium, _Lawrencite_, protochloride of iron, _Asmanite_, a species of silica, _Maskelynite_, a singly refracting mineral with the composition of labradorite. _Weinbergerite_, silicate intermediate in chemical composition between pyroxene and nepheline.

[Sidenote: Nature of troilite, asmanite and maskelynite.]

Of the above, _Troilite_ is perhaps identical with some varieties of terrestrial pyrrhotite: _Asmanite_, the form of silica obtained in 1867 by Prof. Maskelyne from the Breitenbach meteorite, was announced by him in 1869 to be optically biaxal, and thus to belong to a crystalline system different from the hexagonal to which both tridymite, then just announced by Vom Rath, and quartz had been assigned. Later investigations of tridymite have shown that its optical characters and crystalline form are inconsistent with the hexagonal system of crystallisation, and it is not impossible that asmanite and tridymite may be specifically identical. It has been found that tridymite becomes optically uniaxal at a moderate temperature, and its general characters appear to be essentially identical with those of asmanite. According to one view, _Maskelynite_ is the result of fusion of a plagioclastic felspar; according to another, it is an independent species chemically related to leucite.

[Sidenote: Compounds identical with terrestrial minerals.]

[Sidenote: Pane 4k.]

29. Other compounds are present, corresponding to the following terrestrial minerals:--

Olivine and forsterite, Enstatite and bronzite, Diopside and augite, Anorthite, labradorite and oligoclase, Leucite, Magnetite and chromite, Pyrites, Pyrrhotite, Breunnerite.

Further, from one of the Lancé stones, chloride of sodium, and from the carbonaceous meteorites, sulphates of sodium, calcium and magnesium, have been extracted by means of water.

In addition to the above, there are several compounds or mixtures of which the nature has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained.

[Sidenote: The rarity of quartz.]

30. Quartz, the most common of terrestrial minerals, is absent from the stony meteorites; but in the undissolved residue of the Toluca iron microscopic crystals have been found, some of which have important characters identical with those of quartz, while others resemble zircon. As mentioned above, free silica is present in the Breitenbach meteorite as asmanite.

[Sidenote: The conditions under which these compounds can have been formed.]

31. As to the _conditions_[14] under which such compounds can have been formed, we may assert that they must have been very different from those which at present obtain near the earth's surface: in fact, it is impossible to imagine that phosphorus, the metallic nickel-iron and the unstable sulphides can either have been formed, or have remained unaltered, under circumstances in which water and atmospheric air have played any prominent part. Still, what little we do know of the inner part of our globe does not shut out the possibility of the existence of similar elementary and compound bodies at great depths below the surface. Daubrée,[15] after experiment, inclines to the belief that the iron is due, in many cases at least, to reduction from an olivine rich in diferrous silicates, and this view perhaps acquires some additional probability from the fact that hydrogen and carbonic oxide are given off when meteoric iron is heated: the existence, however, of such siderolites as that of Krasnojarsk, which is rich both in metallic iron and in orthosilicate of iron and magnesium (olivine), and yet presents no traces of the intermediate metasilicate of iron and magnesium (bronzite), offers a weighty objection to the general application of this view.

[Sidenote: Classification.]

32. Meteorites may be conveniently arranged in three classes, which pass more or less gradually into each other: the first includes all those which consist mainly of iron, and have, therefore, been called by Prof. Maskelyne aero-siderites (_aer_, air, and _sideros_, iron), or, more shortly, _Siderites;_ the second is formed by those which are composed chiefly of iron and stone, both in large proportion, and are called aero-siderolites, or, shortly, _Siderolites;_ while those of the third class, being almost wholly of stone, are called _Aerolites_ (_aer_, air, and _lithos_, stone).

[Sidenote: The siderites.]

33. In the Siderites the iron generally varies from 80 to 95 per cent., and the nickel from 6 to 10 per cent.; in the Santa Catharina siderite (of which the meteoric origin is somewhat doubtful) 34, and in that of Oktibbeha County 60, per cent. of nickel have been found: the nickel is alloyed with the iron, and several of the alloys have been distinguished by special names. Owing to the presence of the nickel, meteoric iron is often so white on a fractured surface as to be mistaken for silver by its finder; it is also less liable to rust than ordinary iron is. Troilite is frequently present as plates, veins or large nodules, sometimes surrounded by graphite; schreibersite is almost always found, and occasionally also daubréelite.

[Sidenote: Evolution of gases on heating.]

Further, various chemists have proved that hydrogen, nitrogen, marsh gas, and the carbonic oxides are evolved when meteoric iron or stone is heated; in one case a trace of helium was detected. Probably the gases were not present in the occluded state, but resulted from the decomposition or interaction of non-gaseous constituents during the experiments.

[Sidenote: Figures produced by action of acids or bromine.]

[Sidenote: Pane 4l.]

34. The want of homogeneity and the structure of meteoric iron are beautifully shown by the figures generally called into existence when a polished surface is exposed to the action of acids or bromine; they are due to the inequality of the action on thick or thin plates of various constituents, [Sidenote: Etched figures.] the plates being composed chiefly of two nickel-iron materials termed kamacite and tænite. A third nickel-iron material, filling up the spaces formed by the intersection of these plates of kamacite and tænite, is termed plessite; it is probably not an independent substance but an intergrowth of the first two kinds.

In the Agram iron, investigated by Widmanstätten in 1808, the plates are parallel to the faces of the regular octahedron; such figures are well shown by the exhibited slice of the Toluca iron; different degrees of distinctness of such "Widmanstätten" figures are illustrated by specimens of Seneca River, Zacatecas, Charcas, Burlington, Jewell Hill, [Sidenote: Pane 4l.] Lagrange, Victoria West, Nelson County, and Seeläsgen. The large Otumpa specimen, mounted on a separate pedestal, furnishes a good example of the less distinct, and more or less damascene, appearance presented by the etched surface of some meteoric irons of octahedral structure.

The Braunau iron gives no "Widmanstätten" figures, but has cleavages parallel to the faces of a cube; on etching it yields linear furrows which were found (1848) by Neumann to have directions such as would result from twinning of the cube about an octahedral face; as illustrations of the "Neumann lines," etched specimens of Braunau and Salt River are exhibited. [Sidenote: Pane 4l.]

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, and 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; it has been suggested that these masses have been metamorphosed, and that crystalline structure was once present, but has disappeared as a result of the meteorites having been heated, not merely superficially during their passage through the earth's atmosphere, but throughout their mass while travelling in outer space.

[Sidenote: Cooling of fused mixtures and of solutions.]

35. Though meteoric iron has been at some time, presumably, in a state of fusion, and its present structure is a result of the particular circumstances of the cooling of the liquid and afterwards solid material, attempts to produce such structures by the cooling of fused meteoric iron or artificial mixtures of nickel and iron have not yet been successful. It will be useful, therefore, to consider briefly some of the manifold changes which are found to take place during the passage of fused mixtures and of solutions to the solid state, and during the cooling of such solids to ordinary temperatures.

If a fused mixture of antimony and bismuth is allowed to cool, the solid which first separates is neither pure antimony nor pure bismuth, but a material which has a percentage composition depending on, though not identical with, that of the original mixture. The temperature for the beginning of the solidification is different for different proportions of the two metals, and is intermediate between 622° and 268°, the solidifying temperatures of antimony and bismuth, respectively; it approaches the latter more and more closely as the percentage of the bismuth is increased. The solid first separated is somewhat richer in antimony than the original mixture; the still fused part, therefore, is somewhat richer in bismuth than before, and does not begin to solidify till a lower temperature is reached; the temperature thus gradually falls, instead of remaining constant, during the solidification. In the cooling of such fused mixtures the changing composition of the part still fused has for effect a changing composition of the solid already separated; whence the slower the cooling of the fused material, the greater is the homogeneity of the final solid.

[Sidenote: Eutectic mixtures.]

A fused mixture of silver and copper behaves in a different way. When the percentage weight of the silver is 72, and that of the copper, therefore, is 28, solidification begins, not at a temperature between 960° and 1083°, the solidifying temperatures of silver and copper, respectively, but at a temperature below both, namely, 770°. The solid which first separates has the same percentage composition as the original mixture; the part still fused has thus itself the same percentage composition as before, and continues to solidify at the same temperature, and in the same way, until the solidification is complete. Such a mixture, having a definite composition and a definite temperature of solidification, was for a time regarded as a definite chemical compound with a complex chemical formula, but on microscopic examination the resultant solid is found to be heterogeneous; minute particles of the silver and copper are seen to lie side by side, the particles being granular or lamellar in form according to the circumstances of the cooling. If the percentage of silver is different from 72, whether it be higher or lower, the solidification begins at a higher temperature than 770°; whence the mixture containing 72 per cent. of silver has been conveniently termed _eutectic_ (i.e. very fusible); the term was suggested by Prof. F. Guthrie,[16] to whom our knowledge of the existence of such mixtures is due.

[Sidenote: Cooling of fused mixtures and of solutions.]

36. When the silver is in excess of 72 per cent., the excess of silver gradually collects together and solidifies at various parts of the cooling fused mass; the still fused portion thus gradually becomes poorer in that metal, and the temperature, instead of remaining constant, gradually falls during the separation of the solid. At length the percentage of silver in the fused portion falls to 72 per cent. and the temperature to 770°; the solid which now begins to form is no longer pure silver, but a material containing 72 per cent. of that metal; and it continues to have the same percentage composition as the surrounding liquid, and the temperature of solid and liquid to be 770°, until the solidification is complete. The final solid thus consists of blebs of silver scattered through a fine groundmass of eutectic mixture of silver and copper. Similarly, if the copper is in excess of 28 per cent., the final solid consists of blebs of copper scattered through a fine groundmass of eutectic mixture of silver and copper.

If the two metals are copper and antimony, instead of copper and silver, the results are more complicated; for the first two metals are capable of combining together to form a definite chemical compound represented by the formula Cu{2}Sb, and each of the metals forms a eutectic mixture with the latter. According to the percentage composition of the original mixture, the solid which first separates during cooling from fusion may be either copper or antimony or the compound Cu{2}Sb; the separation continuing, and the temperature falling, until the first eutectic proportion and its corresponding temperature are reached.

[Sidenote: Cooling of solutions.]

37. Analogous results are obtained during the cooling of solutions; for instance, during the cooling of a solution of sodium chloride (common salt) in water. A solution containing 23·5 per cent. of sodium chloride begins to solidify at -22° C.; the separating solid is not simple sodium chloride or simple ice, but has the same percentage composition as the original solution, and thus the temperature remains -22° until the whole material has become solid. On microscopic examination the solid is seen to be heterogeneous, and to consist of small particles of sodium chloride and ice lying side by side. If the percentage of sodium chloride is different from 23·5, whether higher or lower, solidification begins before the temperature has fallen to -22°. The characters of this particular solution are thus closely analogous to those of the eutectic mixtures described above. If the sodium chloride exceeds 23·5 per cent., the excess of sodium chloride begins to separate, and solidify, at various parts of the liquid, at a temperature higher than -22°; it continues to separate, and the temperature to fall, until the proportion of sodium chloride in the residual liquid is reduced to 23·5 per cent. and the temperature to -22°. Afterwards the separating solid has the same composition as the residual liquid (23·5 per cent. of sodium chloride), and the temperature remains constant, until the residual liquid has been wholly transformed into a solid fine-grained mixture of sodium chloride and ice. The final solid thus consists of large particles of sodium chloride dispersed through a fine groundmass consisting of eutectic mixture of sodium chloride and ice. Similarly, if the water is in excess of 76·5 per cent., the final solid consists of large particles of ice dispersed through a fine groundmass consisting of eutectic mixture of sodium chloride and ice.

The results of the cooling of a solution of ferric chloride are still more complicated; for this substance enters into chemical combination with water, and in no fewer than four different proportions. The solid which first separates from the cooling solution may thus, according to the percentage of ferric chloride, be either ferric chloride or water, or any one of the various compounds of the two; and to each pair of compounds nearest to each other in composition corresponds a different eutectic mixture and a different temperature for its formation.

[Sidenote: Cooling of solids.]

38. Some solid bodies, during cooling, show changes analogous to those observed in solutions, and are therefore termed "solid solutions." For instance, if a hot physically homogeneous solid obtained from the fusion of iron with carbon is cooled, there may result a separation in the solid of particles of either iron or cementite, the latter being a chemical compound of iron and carbon represented by the formula Fe{3}C; the particular substance separated depending on the percentage composition of the original solid. This separation continues, and the temperature falls, until the residual physically homogeneous material contains 0·9 per cent. of carbon and the temperature is 690°; the temperature then remains constant, although the body is surrounded by a cooling medium, until this residual physically homogeneous material has been wholly transformed into a fine-grained mixture of iron and cementite, containing 0·9 per cent. of carbon. This particular kind of mixture has been termed eutectic, though the transformation has taken place, not by solidification from fusion, but in a body which was already solid. Prof. Rinne has proposed for such cases the substitution of the term _eutropic_, thus avoiding the suggestion of fusion. The eutectic mixture of iron (or ferrite) and cementite is known as pearlite.

[Sidenote: Overcooling.]

39. Just as water may be cooled so quietly that it is still liquid at a temperature much below the normal freezing point, a mixture may be cooled in such a way as to pass much below the eutectic (or eutropic) point without the normal transformation taking place; it is then said to be overcooled. The equilibrium, however, is very unstable, and the transformation, once begun, takes place almost instantaneously throughout the whole mass.

[Sidenote: Crystalline structure of artificial iron.]