APPENDIX A. 



MOLDAVITES, BILLITONITES, AND OTHER GLASSES OF SUPPOSED 



METEORIC ORIGIN/ 



Peculiar pebbles of a greenish, chrysolite-like glass found in the 

 gravels in regions remote from volcanoes or manufactories attracted 

 the attention of observers in Bohemia and Moravia as long ago as 

 1787. The literature since that date contains numerous references to 

 these and somewhat similar occurrences in India, Australia, and 

 other widely separated localities, the descriptive matter as a rule 

 being accompanied by speculations regarding the ultimate source of 

 the materials. 



In Moravia and Bohemia the objects are found with quartz pebbles 

 in the late Diluvian and Tertiary conglomerates, but are never refer- 

 able directly to the same. In Java they are found in Quaternary 

 tuffs, and in the platinum mines southeast of Borneo. On the island 

 of Billiton they are found in the Quaternary and perhaps Pliocene 

 tin-bearing gravels. In Australia they have been found mainly on 

 the surface of the ground, and no positive proof of their existence in 

 Tertiary beds has as yet appeared. According to information 

 received from George W. Card, of the Mining and Geological Museum, 

 Sydney, the examples from Bimbowrie in southern Australia were 

 found on a plain thickly covered with weathered quartz which 

 resulted from the denudation of the adjacent quartz reefs. Most of 

 them were broken and shattered as though by a fall ; all lay loosely 

 on the surface. 



In appearance and general physical properties these various bodies 

 from widely separated sources possess certain points in com- 

 mon, but are yet so different in appearance that examples from any 

 one locality are readily distinguished from those of another. The 

 Moravian and Bohemian forms, as will be noted by reference to Nos. 

 54093-98, 77525, and 77872, pi. 41, figs. 4-6, are more or less rounded 

 pebbles or flattened slag-like masses, the surfaces of which are pitted 

 in a way which has been compared by some writers to the thumb-like 



1 For a full bibliography of this subject up to and including 1898, see Franz E. Suess, 

 Die Herkunft der Moldavite und verwandter Glaser, Jahrb. d. k. k. geol. Reichsanstalt, 

 Heft 2, vol. 50, 1900, pp. 193-381. This includes 55 titles referring to the occurrences 

 In Europe, the Sunda Archipelago, and Australia. A bibliography of the Australian and 

 Tasmanian occurrences is given by R. H. Walcott in his paper on The Occurrence of 

 So-called Obsidian Bombs, in the Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, 1898, pp. 23-52. 



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