METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. 267 



Its weight, as first found, was 10.5 pounds. Its shape was that of a cylinder with two flattened edges and somewhat 

 compressed at the ends; on the whole, approaching moat nearly to the shape of 8 very transverse bivalve. Unlike 

 many of the iron masses found in the soil, the surface of the present specimen is nearly free from yellow hydrated 

 peroxide of iron, being mostly enveloped with a black and brittle coating, which, though containing some turgite, is 

 yet mostly formed of magnetite. The general surface is smooth, though presenting a few broad but shallow depressions. 

 A series of amygdaloidal masses of troilite, the largest being of the size of filberts, traverses the body near the end which 

 has been sliced, and where they were so abundant as to constitute for a considerable space nearly one-third of the 

 aggregate, while elsewhere they scarcely come into view, except in remote amygdules. Where the scaly coating of 

 magnetite is thin or wholly wanting a coarse crystalline structure appears, but without any very continuous lamina- 

 tion. The slicing is not difficult unless the saw encounters troilite or magnetite, the latter of which, associated with 

 traces of graphitoid, envelops the former and also exists elsewhere in the immediate vicinity of the amygdules, in a 

 coarse network of veins. The existence of the seams occasionally aids in the separation of small fragments of the iron, 

 between whose layers it seems to have insinuated itself and acted as a rupturing force. This circumstance is worthy 

 of notice as a possible cause of the disintegration and detonation of meteorites while traversing our atmosphere. 



The most interesting feature by far of the Lexington iron is that of its remarkable analogy in structure and com- 

 position with the Bohumilitz iron, found in 1829, the resemblance of their etched surfaces being so strong that they 

 might very easily be confounded. They are the only two irons which strikingly give the moir6 me'tallique luster. The 

 chief difference between the two consists in the thickness of the crystalline bars, which in the Lexington iron is nearly 

 double that of the other. In both their walls are alike', broadly undulatory or wavy; and the included spaces are 

 filled with closely crowded points of rhabdite and extremely minute lines of tsenite, crossing each other at all angles 

 from 90 to 150. In passivity it far surpasses any iron hitherto discovered. Schreibersite also occurs in smal 

 quantity along with the graphitoid and magnetite. It shows no signs of chemical alteration by exposure to the air, 

 in which respect also it agrees with the Bohumilitz. 



The specific gravity of the entire mass was 7, that of homogeneous fragments 7.405. Analysis by Prof. C. U. Shep- 

 ard, jr., gave: 



Fe Ni Co Mn Sn P Insoluble residue 



92.416 6.077 0.927 trace trace trace 0.264 =99.684 



Meunier * described the iron as follows : 



The unique specimen of the Lexington iron in the possession of the Paris Museum is very small. It is sufficient, 

 however, to identify this fall with the type bendegite. It develops etching figures entirely characteristic of this type. 



Brezina's 3 description is as follows: 



The bands have crumpled edges witn interwoven shreds of tsenite. The kamacite is deeply hatched. Oriented 

 rhabdite and etching pittings are abundant. Fields are very scarce and entirely filled with ridges resembling the 

 kamacite in appearance. The large, elongated, and irregular troilite concretions have a band of schreibersite which 

 penetrates the troilite. 



The iron is somewhat distributed, the Shepard collection in Washington possessing the 

 largest amount (3,992 grams). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. 1881: SHEPARD. On the meteoric iron of Lexington County, South Carolina. Amer. Journ. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 21, 



pp. 117-119. (Analysis.) 



2. 1893: MEUXIER. Revision des fers me'teoriques, pp. 25 and 27. 



3. 1895: BBEZINA. Wiener Sammlung, p. 286. 



LICK CREEK. 



Davidson County, North Carolina. 



Latitude 35 40' N., longitude 80 16' W. 



Iron. Hexahedrite (H); Braunite (type 3), of Meunier. 



Found 1879; described 1880. 



Weight, 1.24 kgs. (2.75 Ibs.). 



This meteorite was first described by Hidden l as follows: 



On July 19, 1879, Mr. Gray W. Harris, while out prospecting for gold on his land near Lick Creek, Davidson 

 County, Xorth Carolina, found an unusually heavy stone of the size of a large pear, which he at first mistook for a speci- 

 men of iron ore. On attempting to break it he found that the stone would not break but was covered with a uni- 

 formly thick skin or crust, which scaled off under repeated blows of the hammer. 



After carefully removing all he could of this crust, there remained a pear-shaped mass of what appeared to him 

 to be a pure metal. The color of the metal developed by hammering was white, and this led him to conclude that it 

 was silver. This "nugget of silver," as he called it, soon had a wide notoriety among all the mining camps in the 

 vicinity. 



