Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 397

Another asks :

“How do you account for the fact that this Drift material does not resemble the usual aérolites, which are commonly composed of iron, and unlike the stones of the earth ?”

I have shown that aérolites have fallen that did not _ contain any iron, and that could not be distinguished from the material native to the earth. And it must be remembered that, while the shining meteoroids that blaze in periodical showers from radiant points in the sky are associated with comets, and are probably lost fragments of comet-tails, these meteoroids do not reach the earth, but are always burned out, far up in our atmosphere, by the friction produced by their motion. The iron aérolite is of different origin. It may be a product of space itself, a condensation of metallic gases. The fact that it reaches the earth without being consumed would seem to indicate that it belongs at a lower level than the meteoric showers, and has, consequently, a less distance to fall and waste.

And these views are confirmed by a recent writer,* who, after showing that the meteoroids, or shooting-stars, are very different from meteorites or aérolites, and seldom or never reach the earth, proceeds to account for the former. He says:

“Many theories have been advanced in the past to account for these strange bodies, but the evidence now accumulated proves beyond reasonable doubt that they are near relatives, and probably the débris of comets.

“'Tempel’s comet is now known to be traveling in the same orbit as the November meteors, and is near the head of the train, and it appears, in like manner, that the second comet of 1862 (Swift’s comet) is traveling in the orbit of the August meteors. And the first comet of 1881 seems to be similarly connected with the April meteors. . .

* Ward’s “Science Bulletin,” E. E. H., 1882, p. 4,