we are at one with Professor Olivier; and it does not seem quite consistent with the primitive catastrophic origin to which in the end he inclines.

If the conclusion of the matter seems to be that when the discussion is finished we do not know much more for certain than when we started, that is no more than the truth: it will be a dull world when there are no more tangled mysteries to unravel and discuss. For the moment, however, let us turn away from cosmical speculations that are too hard for us and walk once more through the galleries of a museum, regarding the meteorites as mere objects of the collector, whose first care is that the objects are genuine. Is it certain that all the bodies preserved in our museums as meteorites have really fallen from the sky? The total number of recorded falls and finds is not so great. In his catalogue of meteorites, published by the Trustees of the British Museum in 1923, Dr. G. T. Prior, then Keeper of the Mineral Department, collected a total of 850, of which 834 have been preserved, or at any rate are so far described that they can be classified. Of these 834, 321 are classed as irons, 35 as stony irons, and 478 as stones. Of the 478 stones, 403 were seen to fall, and 75 have been found exhibiting such likeness to those undoubtedly fallen that they are generally accepted as genuine meteorites. Of the 321 irons, only 22 have been seen to fall, and 299 are finds. This is a striking disproportion, and we are entitled to ask: Are the characteristics of meteoric irons so uniquely and incontrovertibly established by the 22 certainties that we are entitled to label the 299 finds as undoubtedly unobserved falls? To this question mineralogists have always given the same reply, that the crystalline structure of meteoric irons is unmistakable; and those who are not mineralogists must be content to accept this judgment. Yet let us observe that if their structure proves they have the same origin it does not by any means follow-though it has always been assumed— that all these finds fell down from the sky. Suppose they had an origin within the earth, and that some of them never got up into the sky. This, to the astronomer, is most unorthodox doctrine. But it has happened to the writer that he began scientific life as an astronomer and later became more of a geographer. In the latter capacity he invites the attention of astronomers to the following curious facts.

Of the 299 finds of meteoric iron no less than 248 belong to the Americas and Australasia, leaving only 51 for Europe, Asia, and Africa between them; whereas of the 22 recorded falls 8 belong to the former and 14 to the latter.

Of the 75 finds of meteoric stones 58 belong to the Americas and Australasia, and 17 to the other continents, whereas of the

403 recorded falls only 71 belong to the former, and 332 to the latter.

Or taking both classes together and using round numbers, four-fifths of the observed falls occur in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and more than four-fifths of the finds come from America or Australasia. Indeed, just one half of the total finds of meteoric iron and nearly one half of the stones belong to the United States and Canada, and to these proportions Canada contributes a share disproportionally small.

In its simplest terms our problem is reduced to this: Why have nearly half the finds of meteoric iron been made in the United States? Shall we attribute it to superior intelligence and observation, with a good eye for minerals? That must have helped, but can scarcely be the complete answer. Have desert conditions and small weathering in a dry climate contributed to the result? A little, no doubt; but the geographical distribution of the finds is not markedly related to the climatic conditions, and extensive ploughing has probably more to do with it. Nevertheless, it is hard to believe there is not something more in it than that; I would rather believe that terrestrial volcanoes did not always succeed in throwing their projectiles clear of the earth, and that in continents where the meteoric irons are disproportionally numerous we may perhaps recognise regions where the volcanoes were active in days very remote.

It will be said at once that there are two grave difficulties in accepting this suggestion-that iron meteorites are always found on the surface, or no more below it than can be reckoned as penetration due to the velocity of the fall, and that, exposed to the corroding effects of the earth's atmosphere and moisture, they must soon rust away. They could not last for geological ages in the earth, but must have spent most of their time in the non-corrosive wilderness of outer space. Those that are found lying on the surface must be comparatively recent falls. Now this is true of some. There is a big meteorite in London which came from the dry climate of Australia, and of late years has shown its dislike of the London atmosphere by rusting and flaking away, so that they had to varnish it to protect it. But that is an exceptional case. Most of the iron meteorites are well protected with a glassy film of oxide assumed to be caused by surface fusion as they fell through the air; yet it is not impossible that some of them got that skin when they were thrown up from terrestrial volcanoes into the air and came down again. Moreover, most of the irons contain a good percentage of nickel. We have lately become familiar with the 'stainless steels' that owe their non-corroding qualities to nickel or chromium or other alloy; and we may well doubt if it is proved that a mass

of nickel-iron well protected with a fused skin of oxide would suffer much if it was buried for ages. True, they are not dug up from depths; but then, as only 299 had, up to 1923, been found lying on the whole surface of the earth, where they are most easily found, it does not seem surprising if chance has failed to reveal even one, as yet, in the relatively negligible excavations that have been made in the earth's crust. Without claiming too much for this argument, I would submit that the celestial origin of the iron finds in our museums is not altogether beyond doubt.

It is difficult enough to suggest any theory that will fit more than 40 per cent. of the facts, even the simplest. Why, for example, if they are fragments of a body disrupted in outer space, should they be so relatively small and so much alike in size? The largest is only thirty-six tons-a big lump of iron, but an insignificant celestial body. Why, again, should all the biggest fall in North America? and why should the ground beneath them show no signs of their fall in crushing or displacement of material?

There is just one place which is supposed to indicate the fall of a really big meteorite-Coon Butte, in Arizona. At Coon Butte is a really fine big hole, with lumps of stone and iron thrown about all round-a deep crater-like excavation 4000 feet across, with all the rock in the bottom crushed to powder and splintered for 700 feet below the surface, just the kind of scar we might expect to be made by the impact of a meteorite, say, 1000 feet in diameter, and hard to explain in any other way. the scar; but what has happened to the meteorite? tons of iron scattered round can hardly represent it. all over the crater floor have failed to locate it. The 700 feet of crushed fragments seem inconsistent with the idea that at the point of contact everything was volatilised, and made an elastic cushion of gas that caused the great meteorite to rebound and go clear away.

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Borings

Whether it really was a meteorite which dealt Arizona that smashing blow seems likely to remain a mystery-the last, but not the least, in the long story we have made on Professor Olivier's book. He believes that meteors and meteorites differ only in size, and that both come mostly from external space, disagreeing therein with the town clerk of Ephesus. As against both authorities I venture to put forth reasons geographical as well as astronomical for thinking that they come neither from beyond our system nor from Jupiter, but were thrown up from our earth's interior by early volcanoes, and that a proportion of them never left the earth at all. The last idea is possibly new: the rest of my thesis is a restatement of what was once held by

good authorities, but has been rather unaccountably neglected in a book which otherwise covers the field exhaustively. The fortunate students of this problem in the United States have unrivalled collections for study in the Field Museum, Chicago; the Museum of Natural History, New York; the National Museum, Washington; and the museums of many universities. Let everyone stand and contemplate a meteorite of the plumpudding variety and ask himself the question whether he really believes that it ever formed from part of a comet, or was condensed from the vapours of space.

ARTHUR R. HINKS.

BABIES IN ANCIENT LITERATURE

THE heading 'Babies in Ancient Literature' will no doubt remind some readers of the famous chapter on 'Snakes in Iceland'; and it is true that perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the case is the negative aspect: babies are, indeed, conspicuously absent from most classical literature—if by classical we understand Greek and Latin. For in Hebrew we are not likely to overlook the stories of the infant Moses and the infant Samuel, which have never failed to appeal to poets and artists-and mothers; nor is Oriental literature in general lacking in appreciation of the charm of babyhood.

Why, then, Latin and Greek should stand alone in insensibility to what is, perhaps, the most beautiful thing in the world is a fact that calls for explanation. Perhaps in each case the explanation may be different. But we shall probably be right in connecting it in both cases with the general lack of what we call romance in classical literature; though this deficiency has been exaggerated, it is still indisputable. Classical literature on the whole has little of romantic love, comparatively little of romantic feeling, for Nature, and still less of what strikes us as religious sentiment.

In the main the Greek mind was too intellectual and rationalistic for what the Germans call schwärmerei-what we call gush, if it does not happen to meet with our approval. It is all a question of the distinction between sentiment and sentimentality. They were so chary of sentimentality that to us they are apt to appear deficient in sentiment to them emotionalism of this sort was associated with the unrestrained passion of the 'barbarian ’ Oriental. The key-note of Greek literature, as of Greek ethics, is self-restraint.

In the case of the Romans we miss the clear-cut intellectualism of the Greeks, while the Greek self-restraint becomes hardened into a stoicism which at times passes into insensibility and brutality. This is particularly marked in the pure Roman blood the Italian is more emotional-a fact which is the salvation of Latin literature.

The result is that not only is there little reference to babyhood