RECENTLY FOUND METEORIC IRONS FROM MESA 

 VERDE PARK, COLO., AND SAVANNAH, TENN. 



By George P. Merrill, 



Head Curator of Oeology, United States National Mnseum. 



1. MESA VERDE PARK, COLO.' 



The iron described below was brought to the Museum by Dr. 

 J. Walter Fewkes, Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 on his return from a field inspection trip during the summer of 

 1922. It was found, commingled with miscellaneous rock fragments, 

 in the Sun Shrine at the north end of Pipe Shrine House in the 

 Mesa Verde National Park of Colorado. There was nothing in its 

 position or surroundings to indicate that the aborigines by whom it 

 was placed realized its ultra terrestrial origin or regarded it with 

 other or more interest than was attached to the fragments of soft 

 sandstone and other rock debris with which it was associated. 



As found, the iron — in the position indicated in the plate — stood 16 

 cm. in height by 10 cm. in breadth and 8 cm. in maximum thickness 

 and weighed when cleaned 3.52 kilograms. It was considerably 

 oxidized and manj^ of the depressions partially filled with the oxida- 

 tion products. The characteristic thumb marks or depressions are 

 still in evidence, sufficiently plain to enable one to pronounce at once 

 upon its meteoric nature. There are no broken surfaces, and evi- 

 dently it represents a " complete individual.'" An etched surface 

 (pi. 1, fig. 3) shows it to be a medium octahedrite of ordinary type. 

 The kamacite bands are slightly swollen and plessite areas are propor- 

 tionally abundant. Schreibersite and taenite are quite inconspicuous 

 except under a glass. No secondary granulation (metabolism) is rec- 

 ognizable. Doctor Fewkes says that the position of the find was sucli 

 as to indicate with a fair degree of certainty that it was placed there 

 during the period of construction, and therefore that the time of fall 

 can not be later than the thirteenth century, the date conunonly 

 assigned to these ruins. 



1 Mutieum Catalogue, No. 645. 



No. 2487-Proceedings U. S. National Musium. Vol. 63. Art. 18 



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