Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1930
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 42 KB
• Volume: 210
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(30)90811-3

✦ Synopsis

Meteorites.

A monograph on the composition and structure of meteorites was written by the late GEORGE P. MERRILL, who died suddenly on August I5, I929, and has been published by the Smithsonian Institution (U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 149, I93o, 62 pages, frontispiece and 32 plates). Of the known chemical elements, 28 have been found in meteorites while the presence in them of 7 additional elements is in doubt. Of the minerals present in meteorites, I6 are also terrestrial, while 12 are rarely if ever terrestrial. Meteorites are composed of volcanic materials and show no traces of any animal or vegetable life. They have been found only in the most recent geological beds. Their chief constituents are unoxidized compounds. They are low in silica and alumina, and rich in free iron, ferrous oxide, and magnesium oxide. They have no exact counterpart in the terrestrial rocks.

J.S.H.