METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. 141 



He further described the structure, pp. 127-129, as follows: 



I have followed this granulation of the kamacite moat carefully in the ease of Cosby. Pieces of this iron meteorite 

 are so incoherent and disrupted throughout its entire substance that, when it is only lightly struck with a hammer 

 it falls apart into a sort of iron garble, which consists of many sided crumbs and grains, all covered with a thin efflor- 

 esence of protoxide of iron. Such garble in abundance has reached Europe from Cocke County, and a good portion 

 of it came into my possession. It apparently owes its origin to the Assuring, which is bound up with its fine granular 

 division; if individual crumbs be further merely struck upon a wooden base, many of them, without the use of force, 

 fall apart into still smaller particles, and if the process be continued, it will, if properly conducted, break up the 

 kamacite into its ultimate individual grains. 



I selected many individual grains from this garble, and after grinding them in all directions and in manifold vari- 

 ations, polished and etched them. In all cases I obtained the hatching of the foliation and the netting of the grains. 

 These were so distinct here that in most cases they were visible to the naked eye. The phenomena were always the 

 same upon all surfaces; if, where they were found visible upon beam fragments, the granules were ground and etched 

 from above, from the side, or from beneath, the hatching was always found over all the ground surfaces and these sub- 

 divided by division lines into a mass of areas resembling a land map. It follows that the granules on all sides had the 

 same characters, no preferable longitudinal direction, and accordingly were in all respects actual granules. Their 

 coherence with one another in the case of Cosby Creek must be especially weak as compared with other meteorites, 

 and accordingly a somewhat loose coherence pertains to those masses which consist almost entirely of kamacite. 

 There is only one locality comparable in this respect with it, and that is its neighbor, Sevier. This also crumbles 

 very easily, and my compatriots in America have accordingly frequently expressed the opinion that Cosby and Sevier 

 are fragments of one and the same meteor. This is entirely wrong, however; these two meteorites are, mechanically 

 and chemically, fundamentally different, as will be shown more particularly on another occasion. When I was inves- 

 tigating the iron-garble of Cosby I thought I had found a good occasion to discover pure kamacite and to be able to 

 isolate and analyze it. I began to wash and purify it, but so many variations presented themselves among these 

 grains that I was compelled to doubt whether it is possible to recognize beam iron that is unmistakable and pure 

 enough for analysis. 



In Study XVI, page 253, he says: 



There are, as has been mentioned here before, certain of the Widmannstatten group of meteoric irons which occa- 

 sionally have a loose coherence. They are easily divided, with only moderate striking, into crumbs which follow 

 the natural cleavage. This often takes place in the line of the tsenite plates, which become loosened and produce 

 fissures. " The kamacite and plessite then separate and the inner scales of the tasnite then fall out of themselves. This 

 happened in the case of Asheville, Sevier, and Cosby. Pieces of these fell apart almost of themselves, and disclosed 

 isabel-yellow colored particles which were easily picked out and freed from all adhering matter. 



On page 254 he gives the specific gravity of Cosby as 7.260. On pages 257 and 258 

 Reichenbach gives an analysis by his son of the entire Trias of Cosby, that is of the crude 

 meteorite as a whole, which gave the following figures in two separate analyses: 

 Fe 90. 125 89. 324 



Ni 1 „ 7Rfi 110.123 



Co | 9 - 786 |0. 422 



P 0. 089 0. 131 



S Trace. Trace. 



100. 100. 



On page 263 of Study XV, Reichenbach gives the specific gravity of the tasnite as 7.428. 

 In Study XVII, page 265, he states that the plessite of Cosby Creek closely resembles the 

 kamacite, being distinguished only by its duller luster and absence of hatching. In Study XX, 

 page 621, he states that iron sulphide appears upon the polished but unetched surface of me- 

 teorites in three colors. Of these he says (pp. 621-625) Cosby contains — 



masses an inch in size and belonging to the first and by far the most numerous group, namely of bronze-colored, some- 

 times like polished, sometimes like dull undressed gun metal. 



********* 

 Cosby and some others have very bright sulphide which is sometimes hard to distinguish from the second class of 

 brass-yellow color. 



********* 

 The third form, or whitish-yellow colored iron sulphide, is found well formed in Sevier (and others). Here it occurs 

 with and adjacent to the first or bronze-colored variety, and indeed it embraces the latter, incloses it, and forms the 

 intermediate member between the bronze colored iron sulphide and the Trias. It extends into the latter and forms 

 patches in it, and shows its own color in marked contrast with both the others. 



