Tektites and Consonants.

Dear Mr. Tremaine:
	With regard to Herr Ley’s article in the May issue, may I point out that while the illustration of the Widmanstätten structure does bear some remote resemblance to the real appearance of Widmanstätten figures, it is a far better representation of the Neumann figures, which, if I remember correctly, aren’t mentioned at all in the article.
	May I point out also that tektites (moldavites, australites, etc.) are not generally conceded to be meteorites, although many, myself included, have an open mind on the subject. Other theories of their origin are: (1) They are volcanic bombs from the moon; (2) They are fragments of a disrupted satellite; (3) They are corroded obsidian; (4) They are fragments of rock fused by the impact of huge meteorite; (5) They are masses of cosmic or terrestrial dust fused by oxidation. Probably there are some more theories, too, but all have their objections as well as points in their favor. Incidentally, the meteoritic theory seems to have been first proposed by Suess in 1900.
	Disregarding tektites, there is a third type of meteorite which Herr Ley forgot. These are either a sponge of nickel-iron inclosing nodules of olivene (pallasites), or they are a mixture of silicates inclosing fairly large nodules of nickel-iron (mesosiderites).
	On the other hand, I was very much interested in Herr Ley’s discussion of bacteria in relation to meteorites. I had never thought of the possibility that anaërobes might be of extraterrestrial origin, but how about the facultative anaërobes that can work either with or without oxygen? Anyway, of the people who have cared to experiment in this direction, one claimed that he found bacteria, and the other found none. So where are we?
	With regard to this Atlantis and Mu hokum, may I ask those who believe there were such places, how they account for the absolute lack of correlation between the Egyptians and the Mayas for instance, in language and physical characteristics? I’m not much of an anthropologist, so I’ll let that part go, but language is one of my hobbies.
	I’ll concede that if any one were to take the trouble they might find even a hundred Egyptian words that sound quite a bit like Mayan words with similar meanings. But I maintain that that proves nothing, because you can do that with any pair of languages. I’ve seen it done with modern English and ancient Egyptian, but if you trace the English back to Anglo Saxon, most of the alleged resemblances disappear, whereas they ought to become more pronounced. Moreover, if you compare the vocabularies of languages that really are related, you will find that laws of consonant change can be established between them. Thus “k” in Hawaiian is always “t” in Samoan and “k” in Samoan is always the hamza (‘) in Hawaiian.
	When a certain missionary tried to prove that the Samoans, and other Polynesians, were the lost tribes of Israel, he found an imposing list of alleged resemblances between Polynesian, and various Semitic languages. But when his results were critically examined, it was found that Samoan “k,” for example, might be replaced by almost any of the numerous Semitic gutturals, and similarly for each and every one of the dozen or so sounds in Samoan. Moreover, no particular change was any more frequent than any other change, so that no law existed, and his theory is now abandoned. All he had proved was that the human vocal apparatus can make only a limited number of noises, and when these are combined into words a certain number of resemblances are bound to occur. That’s the explanation of the so-called resemblances between Mayan and Egyptian, or the Greek alphabet, or what have you.
	And another thing. Even if there are legitimate resemblances between two languages, relationship cannot be claimed unless there are grammatical correspondences also, because phonetic peculiarities of the languages might conceivably simulate laws of consonant change. This works the other way, also. Take Japanese and Korean for example. Japanese grammar resembles Korean grammar to a considerable degree, yet competent philologists, not just me, are all afraid to claim relationship, because the resemblances in vocabulary are few.
	Now, if you publish this, I suppose some one will try to prove I’m wrong. But I have only brought up well-established laws of language, while I think most people who believe in Mu or Atlantis must have allowed the romance of the theory overshadow their better judgment. At any rate, that is the reason why I once believed in Atlantis and Mu, and Lemuria, too, until I examined the facts in the cold light of science.—John Davis Buddhue, 99 South Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Calif.