494 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. XIII. 



Indian witnesses were produced who testified that the above facts were true, according to the legends of their tribes. 

 One of them was a member of the Klickitat tribe of Indians and the other was a Wasco Indian. 



Both parties to this case agree that the object is a meteorite but no proof has been offered by either to show when 

 it arrived on the earth. The Oregon Iron & Steel Company denies that it is an Indian relic and claims title to it by 

 virtue of ownership of the land upon which it was found. 



It may safely be assumed, probably, that this iron fell on the land where it was found although there is no proof of it. 

 The Indians who previously visited and worshipped it could not have transported it. If they had ownership of the 

 land they owned the specimen. As they did not remove it when the land passed from them it would seem that the 

 meteorite went with the land. But the consideration that they had used it a3 a special object, for a special purpose, 

 foreign to the uses to which land as such is devoted seems to make it an object of personal property. They may have 

 erected it in the position in which it stood and may have deepened the "potholes" on its upper surface. If a man 

 sculptures a statue from some rock on his land, when he sells the land the statue does not go with the land. If the 

 Clackamas Indians did not own the land, and yet visited and controlled the specimen for a specific use without objection 

 from others, it seems reasonable to assume that the specimen was eot an appurtenance of the land and that they had a 

 right to remove it. If they abandoned it, without removal, it seems to belong to that class of Indian relics of which 

 many examples are known and of which the finder, rightly or wrongly, becomes the owner. 



If the specimen is an Indian relic the ownership thereof may still be in the owner of the land. He is a trespasser 

 who wilfully passes on to his neighbor's domain; and he is still more a trespasser if he removes, against the owner's 

 protest, any of the property of his neighbor. 



Note. — Since the foregoing was written the Oregon supreme court has decided this case as follows as published in 

 the Portland Oregonian: 



Oregon Iron & Steel Company, respondent, vs. Ellis Hughes, appellant, from Clackamas County, T. A. McBride, 

 judge; affirmed; opinion by Chief Justice Wolverton. 



Held, that a meteoric rock is a part of the real property upon which it falls, and evidence that Indians worshipped 

 the rock and dipped their arrows in the water held in its cavities is not sufficient to show that the Indians had dug the 

 rock from the ground and acquired title to it as personal property. The question whether Indian ownership and aban- 

 donment is sufficient ground upon which to predicate title in the finder is not decided. 



The court did not consider the evidence as to the ownership of the specimen as personal property by the Indians 

 of sufficient force to warrant the reference of the case to a jury for determination. That evidence failing, there was left 

 the bare question as to whether the meteorite belonged to the real estate or to the finder. In that the Oregon court 

 coincided with the Iowa court in re Winnebago meteorite. 



The meteorite is chiefly preserved in the American Museum of Natural History. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. 1904: Kunz. Science, n. s., vol. 19, p. 108. 



2. 1904: Ward. Proc. Rochester Acad. Sci., vol. 4, pp. 137-148, plates 13-18. 



3. 1905: Winchell. Amer. Geol., vol. 36, pp. 47-49 and 250-257. 



Williamsport. See Bald Eagle. 



Wilson County iron. See Cocke County. 



Wilson County stone. See Cross Roads. 



Winnebago County. See Forest City. 



Wisconsin, 1858. See Trenton. 



Wisconsin, 1884. See Hammond. 



WILLIAMSTOWN. 



Grant County, Kentucky. 



Iron. Medium octahedrite (Om) of Brezina. 



Found, 1892. 



Weight, 31 kgs. (68 lbs.). 



This meteorite was described by Howell 1 as follows: 



This siderite was secured from A. E. Ashcraft, who found it April 25, 1892, on his farm in Grant County, Kentucky, 

 3 miles north of Williamstown. It is a thin flat rectangular mass measuring 12 by 16 inches; it is 2.5 inches thick iD 

 the center thinning to a blunt edge at either end, looking not unlike a large double-edged axe. The total weight of 

 the mass was 68 pounds, or about 31 kg., and had a specific gravity of 8.1. It was entire when it reached me with the 

 exception of a few ounces broken from one of the thin edges. We have cut the iron into a number of sections which 

 etch very readily, showing it to be a typical octahedrite of medium coarseness, as seen in the accompanying full-size 

 cut of one of the smaller sections. It will be seen from this cut also that the kamacite bands are massed together to a 

 considerable extent, leaving an unusually small number of plessite blocks; these when deeply etched are seen to be 



