74 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. XIII. 



Colonel Nicholson for information respecting that portion of his effects, which would likely be to include this specimen 

 but my inquiries were without success. Previous to this date, however, I had been informed by Professor Tuomey, 

 who was then the State geologist, that he had seen a specimen of malleable iron in the cabinet of Doctor Barratt, of 

 Abbeville, which led me to address a letter to this gentleman relative to the subject, from whom I received the following 

 note, dated June 1, 1846, accompanied by the specimen itself: "I can furnish you with little that is definite concern- 

 ing its history. The year Colonel Nicholson, of Charleston, died, he had obtained it in Pendleton or Greenville district. 

 It was given to him by some person, who had picked it up as a meteorite. Colonel Nicholson gave it to me, as I was 

 then the only person in this part of the country who preserved such objects. I believe it to be meteoric in its origin, 

 and as such it has had a place in my cabinet. To yourself and to science it is most cheerfully tendered." 



On communicating a description of the mass to Doctor Hardy, he replied, "I have no doubt that the specimen 

 referred to is the same which I gave Colonel Nicholson. It was found at the head of Swanannoah River, near the base 

 of Black Mountain, towards the eastern side of Buncombe County." 



The fragment weighs only 21 ounces; and, judging from the size and shape of that which still exhibits the natural 

 outside of the meteor, it is evidently a portion of a mass that must have been much larger. The texture is throughout 

 highly crystalline, having all of the laminae (which are unusually thick) arranged conformably to the octahedral faces 

 of a single individual. These layers, which commonly have a thickness of one -tenth of an inch, adhere to one another 

 with much tenacity, so as not to be separable by any ordinary force. They manifest a slight tendency, however, as a 

 result of weathering, to separate into granular portions of the thickness of the layers themselves; the particles being 

 somewhat oval in form a result which seems to flow from the existence of very minute veins of magnetic iron pyrites; 

 for when a surface of the iron is polished it exhibits the appearance of being mapped off into rounded patches by thin 

 veins of the pyrites, and on the application of nitric acid this structure is farther developed by the corrosion of the 

 veins. Within these areas, the structure of the iron, when etched, scarcely seems crystalline; at most, exhibiting a 

 few faintly marked crossing lines. A somewhat similar structure is visible in the Cocke County iron. 



The mass contains several rounded and irregular nodules of plumbaginous matter (from 0.5 to 1 inch in diameter), 

 with which again (and often situated in the midst of the kernels) are found large pieces of foliated, magnetic iron 

 pyrites. In this respect also the present iron is closely related to the Cocke County iron. Its specific gravity is 7.261. 

 It consists of 



Nickel (with traces of cobalt) 2. 52 



Iron 96.04 



Insoluble matter, sulphur and loss 1. 44 



100.00 



Brezina 3 gives the breadth of the lamellae as 1.8 to 2.0 mm., and states that the bands are 

 irregular. 



The meteorite is distributed about equally among a number of collections. Amherst has 

 343 grams, which, added to 384 grams listed by Wulfing, gives more than 596 grams, the 



amount which Shepard stated that he originally acquired. 







BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. 1847: SHEPARD. Report on Meteorites. Amer. Journ. Sci., 2d ser., vol. 4, pp. 82-83. 



2. 1861-1862: VON REICHENBACH. No. 15, pp. 110 and 124; No. 16, p. 261; No. 17, p. 265; No. 18, p. 487; No. 20, 



pp. 622, 630, and 631; and No. 21, pp. 578, 580, and 589. 



3. 1885: BREZINA. Wiener Sammlung, pp. 207, 214, and 234. 



Blount County. See Summit. 



BLUFF. 



Fayette County, Texas. 



Here also Fayette County and Lagrange, 1878. 



Latitude 29 55' N., longitude 96 50' W. 



Stone. Brecciated crystalline chondrite (Ckb) of Brezina. 



Found about 1878; described 1888. 



Weight, 146 kgs. (320 Ibs.). 



This meteorite is described by Whitfield and Merrill ' as follows: 



Found about 1878 at Bluff, a settlement on the Colorado River about 3 miles southwest of the town of La Grange, 

 in Fayette County, Texas. 



The finder, a Bohemian named Raniosek, was struck by the appearance and especially the weight of the stone, 

 and * * * came to the conclusion that it was something foreign to the soil. He dug a hole under where it had 

 lain in hope of finding the buried war treasures of the Mexican General Santa Anna, which were supposed by the 

 inhabitants of that region to have been buried there by the general after his defeat at the battle of San Jacinto. For 



