METEORITE CRATERS — SPENCER 319 



smaller still warm masses of meteoric iron lying on the frozen 

 ground. None of these explanations, however, appears to be satis- 

 factory, and it is indeed doubtful whether these small depressions 

 are at all comparable with those of Henbury and Wabar. No trace 

 of meteoric material has been collected by Dr. Kulik, but he was told 

 by the natives that pieces of iron were formerly found in the central 

 area of the fallen forest. 



The Ashanti abater -" occupied by the large circular lake of 

 Bosumtwi lies on a watershed at 6°30' N., 1°25' W. It is roughly 

 circular in outline with a diameter of about 6V2 miles and a depth 

 to the surface of the lake of 900 to 1,200 feet. The gentle outer 

 slopes merge into the surrounding upland 300 to 600 feet below the 

 rim, which is higher on the south side. The lake is nearly 5 miles 

 across and 240 feet in depth, and its surface is 600 feet below the 

 surrounding country. Pre-Cambrian phyllites exposed in places 

 in the steep inner slopes show the same strike and dip as in the 

 surrounding country. Granitic rocks, but no volcanic rocks, are 

 present in the neighborhood. The view of the Gold Coast Geolog- 

 ical Survey that the crater is due to faulting is not accepted. A 

 gas explosion is not probable, and Dr. Maclaren suggests that the 

 crater was formed by the fall of a large meteorite. But no meteori- 

 tic material has been found, and there is no shattering of the rock 

 walls, and no fragmentary material in the rim. 



The supposed crater in Persia was shown to General Dyer -^ in 1916 

 by his native guide Idu as a curious hole in a level plain near G^varkuh 

 (28°30' N., 60°40' E.) in the Sarhad district of Persian Baluchistan. 

 The hole was then 150 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 50 feet deep 

 with absolutely perpendicular sides. Idu said that it had been only 

 half its present size, but twice as deep, and that his grandfather 

 remembered how and when it was made. The old man told him 

 that one night, when he was a youth, something exploded in the 

 sky, and falling to the earth had punched a hole 100 feet deep in 

 the plain. The spot was visited by C. P. Skrine - in 1921, who 

 gives the dimensions as 95 by 70 feet, with a depth of 35 feet. At 

 the time of a later visit in 1929 it had silted up by 3 feet. The 

 picture given by Skrine shows a vertical hole through horizontal 

 .strata (apparently alluvial deposits), and it does not in the least 

 suggest a meteorite crater. 



The Campo del Cielo craters (fig. 2) in Argentina may now be 

 added to the list of known meteorite craters. The locality is sit- 

 uated in the Gran Chaco on the border between the Province of 



»> Maclaren, Malcolm, Lake Bosumtwi, Aslianti. GeoKr. Journ., vol. 78, pp. 270-276, 

 2 pl.s., 4 toxt-fiRs., 1031. 



" Dyer, Brlg.-Gen. R. E. H., The Raiders of the Sarhad, pp. 85, 86, London, 1921. 



" Skrine, C. P., The niRhlands of Persian Baluchistan. Geogr. Journ., vol. 78, p. 328, 

 1931. 



