are strewn around. These irons so closely resemble undoubted meteorites both in appearance and in composition that it was perhaps not unnatural that they should have been deemed to have had a celestial origin, and the fact that these so-called visitors from the sky were strewed in and around the volcanic vents has been commented on as a remarkable coincidence.
With the knowledge obtained from the Ovifak iron, we can at once place what is doubtless the true interpretation on the interesting phenomena at Coon Butte. It is perfectly certain that these iron masses never came down from the sky. We do not doubt their resemblance to meteoritic bodies; in fact that there is such a resemblance is a part of our argument, but what we desire to point out is that they have been simply extruded from the earth itself in the course of a volcanic eruption. Their existence in their present situation forms an independent line of testimony to show that so far from the iron-nickel alloy being only found in genuine meteorites, it is distinctly a terrestrial substance appearing abundantly in certain volcanic localities. I would therefore look at Coon Butte as an illustration on a feeble and degenerate scale of one of the mighty volcanoes of ancient days.
I do not think, indeed suggest, that this particular volcano was one of those from which meteorites have been launched. Probably at the comparatively modern date when Coon Butte itself was active, its energy was of a far less potent description than that which would have been required for driving the missiles free from the earth. But it requires no great effort of the imagination to think of a primeval volcano charged with materials
