l soft, this
stupendous iron meteorite of gigantic mass and bulk happened to fall
into this particular soft bed. The view is, however, steadily gaining
ground that this great iron mass was no celestial visitor at all, but
that it simply came forth from the interior of the earth with the basalt
itself. The beautiful specimens in the British Museum show how the iron
graduates into the basalt in such a way as to make it highly probable
that the source of the iron is really to be sought in the earth and not
external thereto. Should further research establish this, as now seems
probable, a most important step will have been taken in proving the
terrestrial origin of meteorites. If the Ovifak iron be really
associated with the basalt, we have a proof that the iron-nickel alloy
is indeed a terrestrial substance, found deep in the interior of the
earth, and associated with volcanic phenomena. This being so, it will be
no longer difficult to account for the iron in undoubted meteorites.
When the vast volcanoes were in activity they ejected masses of this
iron-alloy, which, having circulated round the sun for ages, have at
last come back again. As if to confirm this view, Professor Andrews
discovered particles of native iron in the basalt of the Giant's
Causeway, while the probability that large masses of iron are there
associated with the basaltic formation was proved by the researches on
magnetism of the late Provost Lloyd.

Besides the more solid meteorites there can be no doubt that the
_debris_ of the ordinary shooting stars must rain down upon the earth in
gentle showers of celestial dust. The snow in the Arctic regions has
often been found stained with traces of dust which contains particles of
iron. Similar particles have been found on the towers of cathedrals and
in many other situations where it could only have been deposited from
the air. There can be hardly a doubt that some of the motes in the
sunbeam, and many of the particles which good housekeepers abhor as
dust, have indeed a cosmical origin. In the famous cruise of the
_Challenger_ the dredges brought up from the depths of the Atlantic no
"wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl," but among the mud which
they raised are to be found numerous magnetic particles which there is
every reason to believe fell from the sky, and thence subsided to the
depths of the ocean. Sand from the deserts of Africa, when examined
under the microscope, yield traces of minute ir