ON THE SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF THE MOLDAVITES AND 

 LIKE SPORADIC GLASSES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 



By George P. Merrill, 



Head Curator of Geology, U. S. National Museum. 



Peculiar pebbles of a greenish, chrysolite-like glass found in the 

 gravels in regions remote from volcanoes or manufactories attracted 

 the attention of observers in Bohemia and Moravia as long ago as 

 1787. The literature since that date contains numerous references to 

 these and somewhat similar occurrences in India, Australia, and other 

 widely separated localities, the descriptive matter as a rule being 

 accompanied by speculations regarding the ultimate source of the 

 materials. It is the purpose of the present paper to discuss these 

 various finds with particular reference to their origin, and incidentally 

 to describe several allied forms concerning the nature of which there 

 is apparently no question. 1 Inasmuch, however, as no object of this 

 nature has yet been described in America, and as, consequently, its 

 literature is almost entirely silent on the subject, a brief review is 

 perhaps admissible here. 



In Moravia and Bohemia the objects are found with quartz pebbles 

 in the late Diluvian and Tertiary conglomerates, but are never refer- 

 able directly to the same. In Java they are found in Quaternary 

 tuffs and in the platinum mines southeast of Borneo. On the island 

 of Billiton they are found in the Quaternary and perhaps Pliocene 

 tin-bearing gravels. In Australia they have been found mainly on 

 the surface of the ground, and no positive proof of their existence in 

 Tertiary beds has as yet appeared. According to information re- 

 ceived from Mr. George W. Card, of the Mining and Geological 

 Museum, Sydney, the examples from Bimbowrie in southern Australia 

 were found on a plain thickly covered with weathered quartz which 

 resulted from the denudation of the adjacent quartz reefs. Most of 

 them were broken and shattered as though by a fall; all lay loosely 

 on the surface. 



1 For a full bibliography of the subject up to and including 1S98, see Franz E. Suess, Die Herkunft der 

 Moldavite und verwandter Glaser, Jahrb. d. k. k. geol. Reichsanstalt, Heft. 2, vol. 50, 1900, pp. 193-381. 

 This includes 55 titles referring to the occurrences in Europe, the Sunda Archipelago, and Australia. A 

 bibliography of the Australian and Tasmanian occurrences is given by R. H. Walcott in his paper on 

 The Occurrence of So-called Obsidian Bombs, in the Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, 1898, pp. 23-52. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 40— No. 1833. 

 80796°— Proc. N.M. vol.40— 11 31 481 



