6 BULLETIN 9i, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Asmanite. — This name was proposed by Maskelyne ^ for a mineral 

 consisting essentially of silica, occurring in the meteorite of Breiten- 

 bach, of which it composed nearly one-third of the siliceous portion. 

 The mineral, when pure, is colorless, with a specific gravity of 2.245, 

 a hardness of 5.5, and is rhombic in crystallization. It is commonly 

 believed to be identical with the tridymite of terrestrial rocks. 



Breunnerite. — This is the name given by Haidinger to a ferriferous 

 variety of magnesium carbonate found in terrestrial rocks and in a 

 single instance in a meteoric stone, that of Orgueil, France. It is 

 the only instance known of a carbonate compound occurring as an 

 original constituent of meteorites. 



Carbon. — Carbon as carbon monoxide (CO) or dioxide (CO,), as a 

 hydrocarbon or in the amorphous, or crystalline form of graphite, has 

 been recognized as a constituent of certain meteorites, particularly 

 meteoric irons, for many years. Berzelius recognized a carbon com- 

 pound in the stone of Alais as early as 1838. Wohler and Cloez in 

 1839 found compounds resembling residue from terrestrial organic 

 substances in the meteoric stone of Cold Bokkeveld, while the French 

 chemist Berthelot extracted hydrocarbons conformable with the pe- 

 troleum series from the carbonaceous meteoric stone that fell in Or- 

 gueil, France, in 1864. The American chemist J. Lawrence Smith and 

 others have since repeatedly reported the presence of carbon in both 

 the amorphous and crystallized forms of graphite in numerous analy- 

 ses of stone and iron meteorites. 



Haidinger, in 1846, described a cubic form of graphite in the 

 meteoric iron of Arva (Magura), Hungary, as pseudomorphic after 

 pyrite, but which Rose suggested was pseudomorphic after diamond. 

 In 1886 H. Carvill Lewis, after studying the matrix of the South 

 African diamond, predicted the discovery of diamonds in meteorites. 

 In 1888 Jerofeieff and Latschinoff found carbon with the hardness 

 and form of the diamond in the Novo-Urei, Russia, meteoric stone. 

 In 1889 was found the first colorless material, thought from its hard- 

 ness and its burning into CO, to be diamond, in the Arva iron. In 

 1891 George A. Koenig of Philadelphia found a black vitreous sub- 

 stance, of a hardness beyond sapphire and believed to be diamond, in 

 the meteoric iron of Canon Diablo. Material from this source was 

 subsequently examined by O. W. Huntington and found to contain 

 unmistakable, minute, colorless, octahedral crystals of diamond. Two 

 examples of these are shown in Exhibit No. 473. The French chemist 

 Moissan in this same iron found in addition carbon in the amorphous 

 form, as graphite, and as black diamond or carbonado. Moissanite^ 

 a silicide of carbon, perhaps identical with artificial carborundum, 

 was found by this chemist in the meteoric iron of Canon Diablo. 



» Philos. Trans. Royal Soc. London, 1871, p. 361. 



