NOTES ON THE WHITFIELD COUNTY, GEORGIA, METEORIC 

 IRONS, WITH NEW ANALYSES. 



By George P. Merrill, 



Head Curator, Department of Geology, United States National Museum. 



It wiU be recalled that in 1881 in the American Journal of Science 

 (vol. 21), W. E. Hidden described an iron meteorite from Whitfield 

 County, Georgia, and gave a cut illustrating the etched sm-face, but 

 no chemical analyses. In 1883, C. U. Shephard, in the same journal, 

 pubhshed a description of a stiU larger mass, weighing some 117 

 pounds, from near Dalton in the same county, and in this description 

 expressed a doubt as to whether this iron might not be identical with 

 that previously described by Hidden. In 1887, again, George F. 

 Kunz in writing on the East Tennessee (Cleveland) iron suggested 

 that this too might be identical with the large mass of the Whitfield 

 County iron. This refers, presumably, to the Dalton of Shepard. 

 It was for the purpose of deciding these questions that the present 

 investigation was midertaken, opportunity for which was offered by 

 the final acquisition by the United States National Museum of the 

 Shepard collection, which contained the 117-pomid mass. 



Referring to the two irons described by Hidden and Shepard, 

 respectively — 



These differ quite radically m structure, as shown in plate 78, 

 figure 1 being an etched surface of the iron described by Shepard, and 

 figure 2 of the mass described by Hidden. The Hidden u-on, it will 

 be observed, is marked by broad plessite areas and a pecuhar swelling 

 of the kamacite bands, while between the two alloys are the regularly 

 disposed, parallel-lying taenite bands. In the Shepard iron the kam- 

 acite bands are not swoUen, but show very straight borders, the 

 taenite bands are thinner, so thin indeed, as to be scarcely recogniza- 

 ble, and the plessite areas much less conspicuous. More important 

 yet is the presence in this iron of small, irregularly scattered, granular, 

 and dendritic particles of schreibersite, shown somewhat indistuictly 

 in white in figure 1 of the plate. These were noted by Shepard and 

 described as being often interrupted at short intervals, so that they 

 resemble the markings of telegraph ribbons, and the continuous lines 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 51-No. 2157. 



447 



