been due to a steam explosion. Since that date there has been
discovered a great amount of additional confirmatory proof). Material
of unmistakably meteoric origin was found by means of the drills,
mixed with crushed rock, to a depth of six hundred to seven hundred
feet below the floor of the crater, and a great deal of it has been
found admixed with the ejected rock fragments on the outer slopes of
the mountain, absolutely proving synchronism between the two events,
the formation of this great crater and the falling of the meteoric
iron out of the sky. The drill located in the bottom of the crater was
sent, in a number of cases, much deeper (over one thousand feet) into
unaltered horizontal red sandstone strata, but no meteoric material
was found below this depth (seven hundred feet, or between eleven and
twelve hundred feet below the level of the surrounding plain), which
has been assumed as being about the limit of penetration. It is not
possible to sink a shaft at present, owing to the water which has
drained into the crater, and which forms, with the finely pulverized
sandstone, a very troublesome quicksand encountered at about two
hundred feet below the visible floor of the crater. As soon as this
water is removed by pumping it will be easy to explore the depths of
the crater by means of shafts and drifts. The rock strata (sandstone
and limestone) of which the walls consist present every appearance of
having been violently upturned by a huge body penetrating the earth
like a cannon-ball. The general aspect of the crater strikingly
resembles the impression made by a steel projectile shot into an
armor-plate. Mr Tilghman has estimated that a meteorite about five
hundred feet in diameter and moving with a velocity of about five
miles per second would have made just such a perforation upon striking
rocks of the character of those found at this place. There was some
fusion of the colliding masses, and the heat produced some steam from
the small amount of water in the rocks. As a result there has been