[3] The Origin Of Hypotheses.

1895.

After disposing of several hypotheses as being incompetent to prove the origin of the mountain he decided to try the magnetic test. He assumed that if such a meteorite was buried there the large mass of metallic iron must indicate its presence by magnetic attraction. By means of the latest scientific apparatus he conducted an elaborate magnetic experiment which gave only negative results.

He discussed at length the various hypotheses which might explain the origin of the crater and concluded his notable address as follows:

"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.

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