NEWLY FOUND METEORIC STONE FROM LAKE OKE- 

 CHOBEE, FLORIDA.! 



By George P. Merrill, 



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



Tlie stone described below was received from Mr. J. O'Neill of Ritta, 

 Palm Beach County, Florida, who states that it was brought up in 

 his net, while seine fishing, some three quarters of a mile from the 

 shore, in the lake above mentioned. 



The fragments secured weighed all together about 1,100 grams, 

 the curved surfaces of which suggest that the stone from which they 

 were broken had a diameter of 10 or 12 inches or more. 



There is no definite record of a fall in this immediate vicinity, 

 though Mr. O'Neill writes under date of April 11, 1916: 



I clearly remember what was supposed to be a meteorite falling about 13 years ago, 

 but it would be hard to ascertain just where it fell. All we know about it is that it 

 fell west of us (i. e., west of Ritta), and people living 50 miles away said it fell east 

 of them. The meteorite, or what was supposed to be one, fell at 10 o'clock one dark 

 night. The sky was suddenly illuminated as if the whole world was on fire, and then 

 there was a great noise like a very large explosion. 



These are the well-known phenomena attending a meteoric fall, 

 but whether or not they have any bearing upon the present find will 

 probably never be known absolutely. Correlation is suggested but 

 not proven. 



Although from a locality so unfavorable for its preservation, the 

 stone is still firm and shows the characteristic thin, rough, and 

 lusterless black crust. Freshly broken surfaces show a dense, green- 

 gray rock weathered to brown, with little to suggest its meteoric 

 nature until examined under a pocket lens, when the outlines of 

 broken ohondrules or pits from which the chondrules have fallen 

 become distinctly visible. Metallic points are few, and scarcely recog- 

 nizable until the surface is ground smooth. In thin sections under the 

 microscope the chondritic type of the stone is at once evident, the 

 chondrules occurring in all conditions from mere fragments to very 

 perfect spherical forms. They are composed in some cases of olivines, 

 in others of enstatites, and still again of beautifully polysynthetically 



' Catalogue No. 525, U. S. National Museum. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 51— No. 2163. 



525 



