"Still another contribution to the subject, while it does not
increase the number of hypotheses, is nevertheless important in
that it tends to diminish the weight of the magnetic evidence and
thus to reopen the question which Mr. Baker and I supposed we had
settled. Our fellow-member, Mr. Edwin E. Howell, through whose
hands much of the meteoric iron had passed, points out that each
of the iron masses, great and small, is in itself a complete
individual. They have none of the characters that would be found
if they had been broken one from another, and yet, as they are
all of one type and all reached the earth within a small
district, it must be supposed that they were originally connected
in some way.

"Reasoning by analogy from the characters of other meteoric
bodies, he infers that the irons were all included in a large
mass of some different material, either crystalline rock, such as
constitutes the class of meteorites called 'stony,' or else a
compound of iron and sulphur, similar to certain nodules
discovered inside the iron masses when sawn in two. Neither of
these materials is so enduring as iron, and the fact that they
are not now found on the plain does not prove their original
absence. Moreover, the plain is strewn in the vicinity of the
crater with bits of limonite, a mineral frequently produced by
the action of air and water on iron sulphides, and this material
is much more abundant than the iron. If it be true that the iron
masses were thus imbedded, like plums in an astral pudding, the
hypothetic buried star might have great size and yet only small
power to attract the magnetic needle. Mr. Howell also proposes a
qualification of the test by volumes, suggesting that some of the