194 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



It was 25^x1^x34 inch in dimensions, and weighed 223 grams. It 

 was crusted over the entire surface, one side and one end being 

 primary (original) crust, the other faces having a secondary coat- 

 ing, showing aerial fracture. This piece was cut through the 

 center, and one-half went to the Field Columbian Museum at Chi- 

 cago, the other to the museum of the State College of Kentucky. 



The third piece (see Plate XIX) was found near the middle of 

 May, 1903, about one and three-quarters miles south of the other 

 two pieces, by a squirrel hunter, Jack Pegrem, whose attention was 

 drawn to a scar on a white oak tree, some fifteen feet from the 

 ground. Looking around he found, a few yards further on at the 

 foot of a larger tree, broken roots and a hole beneath. Searching 

 here, he found the great aerolite buried less than two feet, its apex 

 crowded in among the roots, some of which had been cut through 

 by the impact. Two other saplings in this vicinity, respectively 

 about 100 and 300 yards farther east, were broken off by missiles 

 coming from the west, and it is therefore probable that there were 

 several other pieces besides the three here recorded, although search 

 for them has been unsuccessful. This third piece has gone through 

 the ordeal of a suit at law brought by the owner of the land upon 

 which it fell, against the man who found it. The suit was 

 compromised by the payment of several hundred dollars to the 

 finder, in consideration of his relinquishing his claim. The mass 

 was subsequently purchased by me, and is now one of the most 

 notable specimens in the Ward-Coonley Collection. 



It would be interesting to find the other pieces above mentioned 

 whose existence is suspected, especially to see whether by shape 

 or surface they would match either of the three known masses. 

 None of these three are battered or bruised in any way by striking 

 the earth, which is particularly surprising in the case of the largest, 

 No. 3, which grazed the trunk of one tree and cut the roots of 

 another before it came to rest in soft ground. But it is on this 

 mass that the breaking off of pieces while still in the air is most 

 noticeable. Several of these pieces must have weighed from one 

 to three or four kilograms each. They came from two sides of the 

 triangle, and were three inches in greatest thickness, and at least 

 four in number. All three of the original masses of this aerolite 

 are quite covered with a dense, black crust which is of two degrees — 

 primary and secondary. The primary crust covers the entire sur- 



