Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1Humboldt, Alexander von
History
Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1
Humboldt, Alexander von
Astronomy; Cosmography; Physical geography; Science -- History
Some few aërolites, as those composed of a finely granular tissue of
olivine, augite, and labradorite blended together* (as the meteoric stone
found at Juvenas, in the Department de l'Ardèche, which resembled
dolorite), are the only ones, as Gustav Rose has remarked, which have a more
familiar aspect.
[footnote] *Gustav Rose, in Poggend., 'Ann.', 1825, bd. iv., x. 173-192.
Rammelsberg, 'Erstes Suppl. zum chem. Handwörterbuche der Mineralogie',
1843, s. 102. "It is," says the clear-minded observer Olbers, "a remarkable
but hitherto unregarded fact, that while shells are found in secondary and
tertiary formations, no 'fossil meteoric stones' have as yet been
discovered. May we conclude from this circumstance that previous to the
present and last modification of the earth's surface no meteoric stones fell
on it, although at the present time it appears probable, from the researches
of Schreibers, that 700 fall annually?" (Olbers, in Schum., 'Jahrb.', 1838,
s. 329.) Problematical nickelliferous masses of native iron have been found
in Northern Asia (at the gold-washing establishment at Petropawlowsk, eighty
miles southeast of Kusnezk), imbedded thirty-one feet in the ground, and
more recently in the Western Carpathians (the mountain chain of Magura, at
Szlanicz), both of which are remarkably like meteoric stones. Compart
Erman, 'Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland', bd. i., s. 315,
and Haidinger, 'Bericht über Szlaniczer Schürfe in Ungarn.'
These bodiescontain, for instance, crystalline substances, perfectly similar
to those of our earth's crust; and in the Siberian mass of meteoric iron
investigated by Pallas, the olivine only differs from common olivine by the
absence of nickel, which is replaced by the oxyd of tin.*
[footnote] *Berzelius, 'Jahresber.', bd. xv., s. 217 und 231. Rammelsberg,
'Handwörterb., abth. ii., s. 25-28.
As meteoric olivine, like our basalt, contains from 47 to 49 per cent. of
magnesia, constituting, according to Berzelius, almost the half of the
earthy components of meteoric stones, we can not be surprised at the great
quantity of silicate of magnesia found in these cosmical bodies. If the
zërolite of Juvenas contain separable crystals of augite and labradorite,
the numerical relation of the constituents
p 132
render it at least probable that the meteoric masses of Chateau-Renard may
be a compound of diorite, consisting of hornblende and albite, and those of
Blansko and Chantonnay compounds of hornblende and labradorite. The proofs
of the telluric and atmospheric origin of aUerolites, which it is attempted
to base upon the oryctognostic analogies presented by these bodies, do not
appear to me to possess any great weight.
Recalling to mind the remarkable interview between Newton and Conduit at
Kensington,* I would ask why the elementary substances that compose one
group of cosmical bodies, or one planetary system, may not, in a great
measure, be identical?
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