A METEORIC METABOLITE FROM DUNGANNON, 
VIRGINIA. 
By Georce P. MERRILL, 
Head Curator of Geology, United States National Museum. 
The iron here described was forwarded to the Museum by C. W. 
Castle, of Nickelsville, Virginia, who reported that it was found 
while plowing on what is locally known as “Copper Ridge,’’ some 3 
miles southeast of Dungannon, Scott County, Virginia. As re- 
ceived, it more nearly resembled an irregular mass of terrestrial 
limonite than a meteorite, though occasional depressions or thumb 
markings on the badly oxidized surface suggested its true nature. 
Oxidation had proceeded so far that in plowing it was broken into 
two pieces weighing respectively 5 and 23 pounds, or a total of about 
13 kilograms. The fractured surface shows plainly an octahedral 
cleavage. The metal is soft enough to cut readily with a hand 
hacksaw, contains, so far as observed, no nodules of troilite or 
schreibersite, and is readily malleable. 
The etched surface is unlike that of any iron that has come to 
my notice (see pl. 1). The octahedral structure is quite indistinct, 
sometimes almost entirely obliterated. The kamacite bands (gray 
in figure) are broad, short, and somewhat wavy, while taenite (white) 
is less conspicuous. The two notable features are (1) a fine granula- 
tion which seems to extend irregularly throughout the mass, and (2) 
the presence, within the kamacite bands, of numerous elongated and 
oval areas of a dull, lusterless black, a millimeter or so in diameter, 
which, in turn, enclose minute rounded bits of metal. The form and 
mode of occurrence is strikingly like that of the schreibersite in 
the iron of Rosario. By careful treatment of a small piece of the 
iron in which these were prevalent, I was able to so loosen the tex- 
ture by partial solution in dilute hydrochloric acid as to allow digging 
out the material with a needle point. This proved to be a mixture 
of iron and amorphous carbon. No phosphorus was present. Fig- 
ures 1 and 2 in Plate 2 show some of these enclosures under a mag- 
nification of some 10 diameters, the metal showing in gray, the car- 
bon black. It is unquestionable that the high per cent (0.542) of 
carbon shown by the analysis is due to these enclosures. Carbon 
nodules are not unusual in meteoric irons, but, excepting in some 
photographs of Canon Diablo irons given me by Dr. Arthur Bibbins, 
I do not recall having before met with this peculiar type. Although 
containing no evident troilite, the etched surface is lusterless and 
1 Cat. No. 644, U.S. N. M. 
No, 2464—PROcEEDINGS U. S. NATIONAL Museum, VOL. 62, ART. 18. 
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