METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. If5 



Its whole weight when entire was 1.5 ounces avoirdupois. The finder broke off a piece to examine the inside and 

 threw the fragment away. It was further diminished by the portion sent to you. Its present weight is 1 oz., 3 pwte., 

 5 gre. The whole was invested by a black crust. Its shape was somewhat wedge-shaped, one surface being nearly 

 plane, and the other irregular or slightly waved. The stone is now in the mineralogical cabinet of Bowdoin College, 

 to which it was presented by Mr. Lemuel W. Atherton, of Castine, who received it from the person who observed its fall. 



Shepard * goes on to say: 



To the foregoing I have the following observations to make, derived from an examination of the fragment so 

 obligingly presented to me for the purpose by Professor Cleaveland. 



Specific gravity, 3.456. In general appearance it resembles the Poltawa stone (of March 12, 1811), but is distin- 

 guishable from that by possessing a much lighter color, a more pearly luster, and in being destitute of specks of iron 

 rust. The nickeliferous iron is in smaller points and possessed of an unusually brilliant silver-white luster. The mag- 

 netic iron pyrites is easily distinguishable in little points though less abundant than the malleable iron. A few very 

 fine black points are also discernible which give, before the blowpipe, the reaction of chromium; they are probably 

 chrome-iron. 



The malleable iron was separated by means of the magnet and equalled in weight 11.22 per cent of the entire stone. 

 It proved uncommonly rich in nickel, being identical in composition with the Green County, Tennessee, meteoric 

 iron; i. e., having 



Iron 85.3 



Nickel 14.7 



The earthy constituent of this stone, like that of the Iowa meteorite, is decomposed by concentrated hydrochloric 

 acid, and like it, appears to be a tersilicate of protoxyd of iron and magnesia, a mineral which, though frequent in 

 meteoric stones, has never y^t been distinctly recognized and which in a future paper on American meteorites I shall 

 more particularly describe under the name of HowardiU, after the Hon. Mr. Howard, that celebrated chemist, who 

 was the first British writer whose labors contributed to elucidate the history of these extra terrestrial bodies. 



No further description seems to have been given of the stone. Bfezina * classifies it as a 

 white chondrite. 



Wulfing 3 lists 22 grams in collections, but makes no mention of the Amherst collection, 

 which contains 29.5 grams. Ward's catalogue 4 lists- 42 grams, making a total of. 93 grams. 

 Apparently Ward secured a piece not mentioned by Shepard. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. 1848: SHEPAHD. An account of the meteorite of Castine, Maine. Amer. Jburn. Sci., 2d ser., vol. 6, pp. 251-253. 



2. 1885: BREZIKA. Wiener Sammlung, p. 180. 



3. 1897: WULFING. Die*Meteoriten in Sammlungen, pp. 65-66. 



4. 1904: WARD. Catalogue of the Ward-Coonley collection of meteorites, p. 39. 



CENTRAL MISSODRL 

 United States. 



Latitude 37 N., longitude 93 W. 

 Iron. Coarse octahedrite (Og) of Brezina. 

 Found 1855; described 1900. 

 Weight, probably 25 kgs. (55 Ibs.). 



Existing knowledge regarding this meteorite is confined to that gathered by Preston * in 

 the following: 



The history of this most interesting siderite, as to the exact date when found, and the precise locality where found, 

 has been entirely lost. 



The weight of the whole was probably about 25 kg. An end piece apparently about half the entire mass, weighing 

 12,360 grams, has been deposited for many years in the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland, Ohio, while 

 the other half was in the collection of the late Prof. Wm. Denton, of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Through the librarian 

 of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Prof. J. P. MacLean, Professor Ward has obtained a large portion of this 

 piece. 



The outer surface of the mass is most beautifully and typically pitted, and of a dark reddish-brown color, with the 

 exception of the prominent ridges, which are of a lustrous dark steel-gray color, resembling graphite, although it does 

 not soil paper when rubbed over it. 



On cutting the mass we found numerous fissures meandering in various directions over the entire surface. A few 

 of the largest are 1 mm. in diameter, and are filled in part by a black graphite-like substance, and in part by schreiber- 

 rite. There are also patches of schreibersite, resembling hieroglyphics, some of them 5 by 25 mm. in diameter, scattered 

 here and there over the surface. A few prominent troilite nodules are visible on the sections, the largest'being 9 by 



