268 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. XIII. 



This story, substantially as above related, reached me at Concord, North Carolina, in the autumn of 1879, my 

 informants being the Messrs. Richard Barnes, jr. and sr. They had seen the nugget and believed it to be iron, per- 

 haps native iron; they had noticed that the nugget had what Mr. Eames, jr., aptly termed "night sweats." Little 

 beads of a yellowish fluid would gather upon its surface over night, which, if wiped away, would form again in the 

 next 24 hours. 



This last addition to the story of the "silver nugget" convinced me that the mass was really meteoric iron. After 

 no little trouble and expense it was finally sent to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where it was at once recognized as 

 meteoric iron. But for the active interest taken in this meteorite by the Messrs. Eames, it would have been in all 

 probability lost to science, and I take this opportunity to express my indebtedness to them. 



Its weight when received here was 2.75 pounds (1.24 kg.). Its outward color is dark brown, not rusty, and some little 

 of the original crust yet adheres to it. The crust of this meteorite is of unusual importance and quite unique. It averages 

 1 cm. in thickness and resembles a hard, dark slate, shows a lamellar structure, and readily breaks into flakes. Some 

 cavities in this crust are lined with mammillary forms, and it has many seams with a vitreouslike luster. Last month 

 I visited the spot where the meteorite was found and collected about 6 ounces of the crust. It lay there exactly as 

 Mr. Harris had broken it off. I had no fears of mistake in identifying this crust, as all the local gravel was composed 

 of white quartz pebbles. The iron has been analyzed by Dr. J. Lawrence Smith and J. B. Mackintosh. I here give 

 the average of four closely agreeing analyses, as follows: 



Fe Ni Co P S CI Cu C 



93.00 5.74 0.52 0.36 traces traces traces undt. =99.62 



The iron does not show the customary Widmannstatten figures. I have etched all the exposed surfaces and 

 obtained no well-defined markings on a large scale, but I have found that the etched surfaces show crystalline faces 

 that reflect the light at certain angles, giving a sort of sheen much like moonstone or labradorite. These reflecting 

 surfaces are in parallel sets. 



Meunier 3 grouped the iron as braunite and noted well-formed rhabdites which easily fall 

 out under the action of acid, leaving cavities of exactly their shape. 



Brezina 2 described the mass as of shallow, pitted form on one side and of a flat, arched 

 form on the other. He goes on to say: 



The loose, porous character of the iron in many places is very singular, especially in the vicinity of individual 

 portions in close proximity to the exterior which have been altered to magnetite. Manifestly the change to magne- 

 tite would take place most readily where the structure of the iron was spongy. Such porous iron particles rust very 

 rapidly, becoming lusterless a few minutes after polishing. 



In common with Coahuila, Lick Creek shows daubreelite-bearing inclusions of troilite; and as there the daubree- 

 lite cuts the troilite in straight lines, so that here also it must be supposed that it is arranged in plates parallel to 

 (001). Rhabdite is prominently developed, having a length of as much as 4 mm. and a breadth of 0.5 to 0.7 mm. 



In 1895/ Brezina noted that the coating of rust lying parallel to the exterior surface appar- 

 ently originated from the veinless underside and that the much veined upper side strongly resem- 

 bled that of Canyon Diablo. According to Hidden's picture of the meteorite, Cohen 6 thought 

 this comparison unwarranted. 



Cohen 6 further described the structure of the iron as follows : 

 Lick Creek etches readily; the Neumann lines are numerous, fine, and uniformly distributed, as is usually the 

 case. One system comes out more prominently here than the rest because of the length and sharpness of the lines, 

 but in general the etching lines are of unusual length and generally attain to the full diameter, so that they cover the 

 etched surface like a tolerably regular network. The large rhabdites have a tendency to cluster together and are 

 regularly arranged, the fine needles (0.25 mm. long by 0.015 to 0.025 mm. thick) being present in considerable num- 

 bers quite uniformly distributed and parallel to one another. The oriented luster is weak. The characteristically 

 porous, easily rusted portions occur only in the neighborhood of the natural surface, and here the etching lines and the 

 luster are wanting. 



Leick 5 determined the specific gravity at 7.5869. The low figures are certainly due to the porous character of 

 some portions and accordingly pieces of this meteorite, when placed under the air pump, develop air bubbles much 

 longer than do other irons. Lick Creek takes on permanent magnetism distinctly and yields a specific magnetism of 

 0.27 absolute units per gram. 



The meteorite is chiefly (950 grams) in the Vienna collection. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. 1880: Hidden. A new meteoric iron from North Carolina. Amer. Journ. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 20, pp. 324-326. 



(Illustrations of mass and crust. Analysis by Mackintosh and Smith.) 



2. 1881: Brezina. Bericht III. Sitzber. Wien. Akad., Bd. 84 I, pp. 280-281. 



3. 1893: Meunier. Revision des fers meteoriques, pp. 15 and 17. 



4. 1895: Brezina. Wiener Sammlung, p. 291. 



5. 1895: Cohen. Meteoreisen-Studien IV. Ann. K. K. Naturhist. Hofmus. Wien, Bd. 10, pp. 83, 85, 88, and 89. 



6. 1905: Cohen. Meteoritenkunde, Heft 3, pp. 220-222. 



