474 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 52 



thicker near the center on the upper half as shown in figure 2, 

 suggesting that this was the rear, on wliich the molten material 

 would naturally gather to a greater extent than on the nose or 

 brustseite. The total weight of the stone as received was 234 grams. 

 Allowing for all abraded portions, even that from the rough sur- 

 face now thinly glazed, it could not have weighed more than 250 

 grams. As now preserved, after cutting slices for thin sections and 

 chemical tests, and as shown in the plate, it weighs 218 grams; 

 specific gravity determinations made on the entire mass gave 3.51 ; 

 Museum catalogue number 395. 



The polished surface of the stone (fig. 2) shows a light gray 

 ground which the pocket lens resolves into a compact mass of gray 

 chondrules closely compressed, sometimes spherical or oval and 

 sometimes angular, abundantly interspersed with small particles of 

 metallic iron and iron sulphide. The surface is traversed by one 

 short and wide black vein and one bifurcating and threadlike, both 

 evidently emanating from the same point. The wider black vein, 

 it will be noted, breaks up at its extremities into several threadlike 

 forms. It would perhaps be more accurate to state that at this point 

 on the surface several parallel-lying, threadlike veins have coalesced 

 for a short distance, then again separated. The filling material of 

 these veins (with the exception of the dark coloring matter which, 

 being unacted upon by acids, is assumed to be carbon) is essentially 

 of the same mineral nature as the body of the stone. Iron and iron 

 sulphide are, however, relatively more abundant, especially in the 

 smaller veins where the sulphide forms in places a spongelike and. 

 at times, a solid filling of the fissure, or may again occur in thin 

 plates Iving near the walls, with ninnerous small particles scattered 

 promiscuously throughout the interior. It naturally follows that 

 this constituent is of more recent origin than the fissures themselves. 

 Occasional evidences of a like secondary nature of the metallic iron 

 are met with, but these are not satisfactorily conclusive. Where 

 the metal fills the vein cavity for a short distance only, it is possible 

 that it antedates the crack which merely passes around it. In other 

 cases, however, there are what appear as mere elongated films of 

 the metal lying parallel with the walls and in shape radically dif- 

 ferent from that in the body of the stone. Such, it is felt, must 

 also be secondary as compared with that of the ground and, together 

 with the sulphide, ofifer some interesting suggestions relative to life 

 history. 



The veins in general appearance are similar to those in the Fayette 



