308 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. XIII. 



Merrill * gave the following further account: 



The meteoric stone described below was received at the National Museum from Mr. J. K. Freed, to whom we are 

 indebted for the facts given relative to its fall and the privilege of describing it. 



The stone fell on the night of September 2, 1905, about 10 p. m., and seems to have come from the west or southwest. 

 When about 6 miles due west of Scott City it exploded with what is described as a terrific roar, plainly heard for a 

 distance of 25 miles, awakening those who had already gone to sleep and frightening people for miles around. Its 

 appearance when exploding was variously described as like the "headlight of a locomotive," and a "white light as big 

 as a haystack afire." Eighteen miles south of Scott City it is stated to have been light enough to "pick up a pin." 

 Following the explosion was a noise compared with the discharge of a heavy battery of artillery or of a heavy wagon 

 running rapidly over the frozen ground, the noise gradually dying away like rolling thunder in the distance. Some 

 claim to have heard the whistling of rocks through the air like bullets or heavy hail. Mr. Freed himself compares the 

 sound to that of "a mighty swish-h-h, resembling the sound of a skyrocket." 



After a search extending over a period of more than a year 14 pieces have been reported as found, scattered over an 

 area some 2 miles by 7 in the vicinity of Modoc, a small town on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. These were mostly 

 complete individuals. Three and a fragment received at the National Museum weighed, respectively, 4640, 1170, 490, 

 and 110 grams. Two others obtained by Dr. O. C. Farrington for the Field Columbian Museum are reported as weighing 

 about 5,400 grams. An individual of approximately 2,000 grams weight is reported as in the hands of a collector in 

 Kansas. This accounts for 7 out of the 14 reported finds. It seems safe to assume that the weight of the entire fall 

 could not have been less than 15 kilograms. 



The 4.64 kg. individual received at the museum was the largest thus far reported. Its dimensions are: Height 

 over all, 21 cm.; maximum width, 15.5 cm.; thickness, 10.65 cm. This was found several miles east of the others 

 and was embedded but 4 or 5 inches in the hard buffalo-grass sod, inclining slightly to the west. It is a complete 

 individual, with the exception of a small fragment of about an ounce weight, which had been broken away to send to 

 the museum previously for examination. 



This and the others examined are covered with a dull brown-black, slightly rough crust of approximately a milli- 

 meter in thickness, showing no traces of flow structure nor perceptible thickening in any part such as would indicate 

 the position of the block in its flight through the air. The surfaces are, on the whole, rather free from pittings. Sundry 

 darker streaks running parallel with the broader faces suggest a lack of homogeneity or a possible Assuring of the mass. 



The broken surface shows the stone to be very indistinctly chondritic and of a color even lighter gray than the Mocs 

 or Drake Creek, Tennessee, stone which it closely resembles. With a pocket lens abundant metallic points are visible. 



Under the microscope the stone is found to consist essentially of olivine and enstatite in characteristic jumbled, 

 granular crystalline forms, interspersed with larger irregular granules and indistinctly outlined chondri of the same 

 material, together with blebs of metallic iron and troilite. As already noted, the chondritic structure is quite incon- 

 spicuous on a broken surface, the individual chondri consisting of irregularly rounded, oval, and sometimes angular 

 aggregates of olivines in granular and gratelike forms, or enstatites in eccentric radiating masses, in either instance the 

 interstices being often occupied by a colorless mineral identified as feldspar. In a single instance a chondrus was noted 

 consisting of a coal-black dustlike material interspersed with a few blebs of troilite, the whole being nearly surrounded 

 by the colorless zone of feldspar (?), the appearance in an ordinary light being practically identical with the black 

 chondrus from the meteorite of Chateau Renard, as figured by Tschermak. The mineral identified as a plagioclase 

 feldspar occurs in small perfectly clear and colorless interstitial forms, so lacking in crystalline outline and cleavage as 

 at first to suggest a residual glass. Extinction angles are quite unsatisfactory, the dark waves sweeping across the face 

 of the crystals in a manner indicative of a condition of strain; and, were it not for an occasional particle with incon- 

 spicuous twin bands, the real nature of the mineral would be in doubt. It was, unquestionably, the last mineral to 

 crystallize, is quite free from inclosures, and occupies the interstices of the olivines and enstatites, often partially 

 enwrapping them, very like a glass, but between crossed nicols polarizing faintly in light and dark colors and breaking 

 up into granular masses comparable with the secondary feldspars in the drusy cavities of metamorphic rocks. Aside 

 from occurring between the bars and radiating columns of the chondri, as already mentioned, it is scattered throughout 

 the ground in a manner closely identical with that of the Milena meteorite, as also figured by Tschermak. 



As noted above, the stone is traversed by fine threadlike black veins, though how abundant such may be it is 

 impossible to tell without breaking the specimen, and this the writer has not been able to obtain permission to do. 



The fall adds one more — the twelfth — to the remarkable list for which Kansas has become noted. 



As will be seen from the description, the stone belongs to Brezina's group of veined chondritic meteorites (Cwa). 

 It will be known as the Modoc, Scott County, meteorite. 



CHEMICAL ANALYSIS, BY WIRT TASSIN. 



The native metal was determined in 2.0255 grams of the crust-free meteorite as follows: The finely pulverized 

 material was treated in the cold with a solution of mercuric ammonium chloride, in an atmosphere of hydrogen. The 



results were: 



Fe 6.56 



Ni 0.68 



Co 0.034 



The sulphur was determined in 1.0300 grams of the meteorite, after fusion with Na^CC^+KNOj. This yielded: 

 S 138 



