ermine its origin by scientific test. He gave the
results of his researches in a very able and comprehensive address,[1]
delivered before the Geological Society of Washington, D.C. The
existing conditions did not seem to fit his theories, and he concluded
his work without arriving at any definite conclusion.

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. 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
th