Note 75 — DESERT JOURNEYS.
Margaret R. Thomson translation
[Note 75] p. 330.—Nodules in the Desert.
These seem to be the now well-known manganese nodules. The puzzling question of their origin is discussed by Dr. John Murray in that part of the Challenger Reports which deals with marine deposits. Solymos thus describes them, “Belted by higher hills, I have mounted one, apparently consisting entirely of a lofty pile of hardened equal sandstone balls, the size of peaches. They were as nearly globular as anything in nature—a bubble, a drop, a planet.”