186 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



[may 5, 



ON THE GROUP OF METEORITES RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN 

 BRENHAM TOWNSHIP, KIOWA COUNTY, KANSAS.' 



BY GEORGE F. KUNZ. 



About four years ago, the farmers of Brenham Township 

 ploughed up a number of heavy objects, which they used to 

 weiglit down haystacks and for other like purposes, as they 

 would have used boulders. It was discovered in March last 

 that these were not common "'rocks," but an interesting group 

 of meteorites, numbering over twenty in all, weighing to- 

 gether about 2,000 pounds, and individually from 466 pounds 

 down to an ounce. They were found embedded at a slight depth 

 in the soil, which here, for about 100 feet deep, is formed of a 

 pleistocene marl, originally the bottom of an ancient lake; they 



Fig. 1.— View of Kimberly Farm. 



occurred scattered over a surface more than a mile in length, 

 principally, however, in a square of about sixty acres. 



What is now Kiowa County, Kansas, five years ago formed 

 parts of Edwards and Comanche Counties, and was occupied by 

 large ranges and cattle-ranches. Brenham Township, or Town- 

 ship 37, as it was then called, is in the northwestern part of 

 Kiowa County, consists of high prairie with some areas of sand- 

 hills, and has an altitude of about 220 feet above sea-level. 

 Some drains of the head-waters of the Medicine River and its 

 tributaries, further south, become ravines and valleys; and there 

 a gravel occurs, the debris of miocene '* Loup Fork " conglome- 

 rates. But on the high prairie not a stone of any kind is to be 

 found; hence the ranchmen and settlers were greatly surprised 

 at finding heavy "rocks'' or stones projecting through the 

 prairie sod. (Fig. 1.) 



1 Read April 7tli, 1890. 



