70 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



ing by train and mule-back to Manzanillo, the sea-port of the State of 

 Colima, and thence by steam up the coast for six hundred miles to 

 Altata on the east coast of the Gulf of California; thence 60 miles by 

 cars to the city of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. Here we met the 

 Governor of the State, and from him obtained letters to authorities 

 further up the country. We also got an outfit of provisions, a car- 

 riage with four mules, and an American photographer who accompanied 

 us with his camera, Bacubirito is 95 miles to the north and west of 

 Culiacan, Our drive took three days, over a very rough road, cross- 

 ing some streams and ravines, and gradually rising to and among the 

 lower foot-hills of the Sierra Madre, the great Cordilleras chain which 

 separates Sinaloa from the States of Chihuahua and Durango. Bacu- 

 birito itself, our goal in this search, is a small but very old mining town 

 situated on the Rio Sinaloa in latitude 26 and in west longitude 107. 

 The elevation above sea level is some 2,000 feet. The meteorite is 

 seven miles nearly due south from there, near the hamlet called Pal- 

 mar de la Sepulveda. Here we found it on a farm called Ranchito, 

 which fills the narrow mountain valley or interval between two spurs 

 of the foothills, running nearly north and south. It lay in a cornfield, 

 close by the eastern edge of this vale, where the level ground began 

 to raise against the hill-side. The valley and th£ field were of black 

 vegetable soil, some two yards in thickness. In this soil the great 

 meteorite lay imbedded ; its surface but little below the general sur- 

 face of the field around it, but with one end slightly projecting above 

 the level. The other end was so deeply imbedded in the soil, and so 

 apparently undisturbed or even uncovered, that it was easy to see why 

 the size and measures of the mass had been uncertain. It was a long, 

 monstrous boulder of black iron, which seemed to be still burrowing 

 to hide itself from the upper world. Its surface form was something 

 that of a great ham. We could walk for many feet along and across 

 its surface, surveying these dimensions as far as they were exposed, 

 but knowing nothing of how far the mass penetrated the soil beneath. 

 Our first work was excavation. For this there was no lack of help. 

 We soon got no less than 28 stout, able-bodied, willing Peons who 

 were delighted to work for us at fair wages. We undertook an 

 excavation of about 30 feet on a side, with the great meteorite lying 

 within. In a single day we passed down through nearly 4 feet of the 

 soft, vegetable soil. At the end of that time the meteorite had 

 assumed the appearance shown in photograph No. i , its upper surface 

 and one side being revealed. On this surface the characteristic 

 " pittings " were well marked, covering the entire surface. They 



