My goal in writing this book was to provide an introduction to meteorite
science and a handbook on meteorite classification. Insofar as I
succeeded it should prove useful both to the practicing professional and
to university students at the upper-division and graduate levels. I
originally intended the book to be nearly twice as long. The second half
was to be a review of properties relating to the origin of each group of
meteorites. Chapter XVIII is an example of how these later chapters
would have looked, although most would not have been as interpretative.
These chapters would have been useful chiefly to meteorite researchers
looking for a quick summary of group properties; they were not written
because of lack of time. Perhaps I will start to prepare this "second
volume" in a year or so when my family and I have recovered from the
preparation of the present volume. Although some parts of the
classification portion are mildly icono- clastic, I have attempted
either to avoid the inclusion of speculative interpretations or to flag
them with a caveat to the reader. I have relaxed these principles
somewhat in Chapter XVIII to conserve space, but even there the
discussion of alternative speculations should give the reader a feeling
for the degree of uncertainty attached.