'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎44] (59/496)

of course produced. I cannot detect any cobalt, which you know Stenmeyer
found in the mixture of iron at the Cape of Good Hope.”
Captain Wingate’s letter and specimens had arrived most opportunely, when
the subject of trollies was occupying much of the attention of philosophers at
home. The following abstract had been laid before the Royal Institution on the
7th of April, of all that was known regarding them
« The established data were stated to be, that meteoric stones, spongy mass
es, and diffused matter or dust in considerable quantities, have fallen from the
atmosphere. And the unsettled questions appear to be—whether shooting-stars
are asteroids, planetary bodies, revolving round the sun in elliptic orbits, and
only rendered visible to us at the nodes, when the orbits of the earth and of these
asteroids intersect, or whether they are satellites revolving rapidly round the earth
in orbits more or less eccentric, and occasionally plunging into the upper regions of
the atmosphere ; whether their origin is the condensation of nebulous matter, c star
dust , 5 c world-dust , 5 or whether their masses were derived from the bursting of a
planet; whether their luminosity is due to contact with our gaseous atmosphere, or
with an electrical atmosphere which may extend far beyond the limits of the gaseous
one ; whether they are self luminous, exploding like a sky-rocket, breaking into
minute fragments, too small to be any longer visible to the naked eye ; whether
they shine by their own light, and suddenly cease to be visible ; or whether they
shine by the reflected light of the sun, and cease to be visible by passing into the
earth’s shadow, by being eclipsed : whether meteors and aerolites are fragments
detached from asteroids, and hurled to the earth by terrestrial attraction ; or
whether they are condensations of diffused matter. This latter view, a cosmical
origin, including also the true asteroids themselves, Professor Powell advocates,
of red sandstone studded with teeth, some of whose summits were quite flat, being worn down,
shewing that the animal to which they belonged had far advanced in years. In the eoprolites,
teeth and scales occur, pointing out that their habits were carnivorous. In England, in this for-
mation, the remains of two saurian genera, palseosaurus and the codontosaurus, have been found,*
and they are the most ancient examples of fossil reptiles yet found in the British islands. In
their organization, they are allied to the iguana and monitor, In Germany, saurians have been
met pith m the zechstemlimestone, which is the oldest rock on the continent in which these
remains have been found ; they belong to the genera protorosaurus, also allied to the monitors,
t is, mwever, remarkable that the sandstone in which the organic remains occur at Kalabagh is
deeply coloured with the peroxide of iron, and it is a well known fact that scarcely any are ever
Jtnnpl ahprnnH^w-tn 1118 ^ f ound to abound : thus we often find red and white sand-
land and Scntl ird iMc H eaCil otller ’ but on ty the latter containing organic remains ; and in Eng-
in Forfarshire - a^d 1 Tnrrt r™! and 1 caIcare l 0 . us beds. Some exceptions to this rule are met with, as
.tone inS LotWau? ’ W ® thulk > f 01 ™ 1 fossU teeth and coprolites in a red sand-
o e oM e imbfdded nt Its r co’o S ur d » t < ! 0 'in w ® have the re<1 m»1, in which the rock salt and gypsum
white, blue, green, &e The rock varies exceedingly, being red,
exposed, and close to the edge of the river so th | M '^, oi .' sever;i hundred feet in thickness,
iiiff the meltino- of the snow m ^f’. 80 ^at when it rises, owing to the hot season caus-
washes away ^part^of theTaltl ^Its co^or^ffericralhf^p 0 ] 8 t0 ^ N *
white—structure lamellated, but very comnLu Thl re< ^ a Pb r oaching to rose red, but sometimes
red, or greyish white colour and nf ^ ■, ra b^ ct * be gypsum associated with it is either of a rose
mountain^ of consider able^eight ^n^fm^ce we^find it Jffd^ Salt ’ ? “ "f
the color varying in general with the r^k • the mo-d hoam with crystals ofrock crystal,
they also occur white, grey, brick red black V? ^ 1 ^ var ^ eties are the rose red, but
semi-transparent, transluscent and nnamio • p * 5 r Ji n £ from transparent on the edges to
by the double six-sMednvrarnidhnt^wffif m ^ 0rrn generally the six-sided prism terminated
sometimes the lateral planes are wanting aflogS f th e terminal planes, and
to notice them all. In size the; vary s^^TOe
* See Proc. Geological Society, No. 45, Messrs Riley and Stuchbury, as quoted by Lyell.