The Crater of Coon Butte near Cañon Diablo, near which the fragments of a meteorite have been found, and which was supposed at one time to have been made by the meteorite.
One Hundred and Sixty-one Pound Meteorite. A part of the ten-ton meteorite which fell at Coon Butte, near Cañon Diablo.
One Hundred and Sixty-one and a Half Pound Meteorite found near Crater of Coon Butte.
Crosses show Large Pieces of the Meteorite found at Coon Butte. (Seven miles in diameter.)
The meteorites or foreign bodies which bombard the earth may be included in three classes—meteoric irons or aërosiderites, meteoric iron stones or aërosiderolites, and meteoric stones, aërolites—all containing elements, about twenty-five in number, which have been found upon the earth. The most conspicuous and important are silicon, iron, nickel, magnesium, sulphur, carbon, and phosphorus, while the others are aluminum, antimony, arsenic, calcium, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, copper, hydrogen, lithium, manganese, oxygen, potassium, sodium, tin, and titanium. Hydrogen and the diamond have also been observed. A number of interesting chemical compounds are found in meteorites not known on the earth, and a study of their character shows that the conditions under which the meteors were formed were entirely different from those which saw the beginning of things terrestrial. In brief, where meteors were born there was an absence of air and water. On the other hand, there was at some stage in the history of meteorites an abundance of hydrogen. The meteoric irons are made up principally of iron with an alloy of nickel, and show a rich crystalline structure, the various angles producing a variety of forms known as Widmanstatten figures which a few years ago formed the basis of a singular sensation. The figures were supposed to be fossil shells and various animals of a diminutive size which once populated the wrecked world of which the meteor was assumed to be a part. These meteoric animals from space were named and classified by several observers, who were finally forced to acknowledge that their creations were the fanciful markings of crystallization.
Another class of meteorites (meteoric iron stones) may be described as spongy masses of nickeliferous iron in whose pores are found grains of chryosite and other silicates. A type of these bodies is the meteor of Pallas, which was discovered by him in 1772. The third class of meteoric stones are those in which the stony or silicous predominates. As a rule they contain scattered metallic grains, but certain ones, as the aërolite which fell at Gara, France, in 1806, contain metallic constituents.
The aërolites present an attractive appearance when made into sections, showing crystals and splinterlike fragments, and under the glass seem to be made up of many minute spheres ranging from those the size of a cherry down to others invisible to the naked eye. The minerals prominent in their composition are chrysolite, bronzite, augite, enstatite, feldspar, chronite, etc., showing a marked similarity to the eruptive rocks so well known on the earth. The collections of famous meteorites in the various museums of the world have constantly been examined and studied with a view to determine their origin, the question being a fascinating one to layman and scientist. Astronomers in the past have variously answered the question. The flying fragments were believed by some to be the wreckage of other worlds. Planets had perhaps collided and been rent asunder in former ages, and space filled with the flying fragments. Others thought that meteors were molten matter thrown from the earth or moon. All these theories have been relinquished in view of evidence of a more or less convincing character pointing to the conclusion that the bombardment of the earth is one of the results of the disintegration of comets. In other words, cometary matter flying not always blindly through space, but in the orbit of the comet of which it originally formed a part, constituting the missiles.