METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. 357 



I have requested Mr. Hoffman to procure and send to me the remainder of this interesting meteorite, and also to 

 inquire of the Indians for other specimens and to procure them if possible. Though of no economical value, these 

 specimens from- beyond OUT world are of great interest to science, and if our friends on the Pacific shore will- look for 

 them I have no doubt many larger masses of meteoric iron may be found there. 



Haidinger * recorded the receipt of pieces of the meteorite weighing } loth from Jackson, 

 but made no further observations regarding it except to remark: 



Its hardness is that of soft malleable iron, except on the exterior of the columnar portions, which are as hard as 

 case-hardened iron, resisting the saw and causing a sharp cry under the file. 



Rose * remarked concerning the meteorite as follows: 



I received from Professor Shepard one of the pieces cut by Doctor Jackson. It is in part bounded on one edge by 

 the natural surface and here shows a thin border of iron oxide. The iron shows etching lines which run over the whole 

 surface as in the iron of Braunau. Likewise the small intergrown rhabdite crystals which characterize this small divi- 

 sion of iron meteorites which consist of one individual without subdivision appear here. On crushing cubic cleavages 

 were also observable. Besides the rhabdite, schreibersite in uncommonly large masses occurs, in one place aggregated 

 together. 



Meunier 4 classed the meteorite as braunite and stated that this iron gave only disconnected 

 etching figures here and there as if an originally regular figure had been disarranged and broken. 

 Also * he said: 



The etched surface shows the ordinary characteristics of braunite, inclosing here and there small grains of rhabdite, 

 many of which show distinctly their quadratic sections. There is, besides, a great mass of schreibersite which is not 

 without suggestion of many arvaites. The resemblance with this latter type is further increased by the presence of 

 many fine cracks lined with carbonaceous matter and inclosing in their axes bright minerals, a part of which are readily 

 referable to troilite, the rest to schreibersite. Crystallized carbon may perhaps be found there. A large nodule of 

 troilite is seen not far from the mass of schreibersite. 



Brezina classed the meteorite as a hexahedrite in both the 1885 5 and 1895 7 catalogues. 

 Farrington 8 proposed the name Ponca Creek for the meteorite, as follows: 



The writer proposes the name of Ponca Creek for the meteorite usually known as Dakota. The reasons for the 

 change are as follows: The original account by Jackson states that the fragment which he described was given him by 

 the United States Indian agent for the Ponca Tribe of Indians, and further that the mass was found on the surface of the 

 ground ''in the Dakota Indian territory, 90 miles from any road or dwelling." In the repetition of this statement by 

 foreign authorities a comma came to be inserted after Dakota, so that the locality was known as Dakota, Indian Territory. 

 There is no such locality, however, and Indian Territory is several hundred miles removed from the place where the 

 meteorite was found. Moreover, the original territory of Dakota, within which the meteorite may have been found, is 

 now subdivided into North and South Dakota, and neither name would designate the locality in a sufficiently limited 

 way. The reservation of the Ponca Indians, who were a tribe of the Dakotas and from whose agent the meteorite was 

 obtained by Jackson, was at that time located along Ponca Creek in Nebraska. It seems reasonable to suppose that the 

 meteroite was found in the vicinity of this creek, and the name Ponca Creek has the additional advantage of containing 

 that of the tribe by some member of which the meteorite was probably originally found. For the meaningless name 

 Dakota, therefore, that of Ponca Creek may well, in the opinion of the writer, be substituted. 



The meteorite is somewhat distributed, but only in small quantities. The whereabouts of 

 the main mass is unknown. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. 1863: JACKSON. Meteoric iron from Dakota-Territory. Description and analysis, Amer. Journ. Sci., 2d ser., 



vol. 36, pp. 259-261. 



2. 1863: HATDIXGER. Ueber ein bisher unbekanntes Meteoreisen. Ann. Phys. und Chem., Poggendorff, Bd. 119, 



pp. 642-643. 



3. 1863: ROSE. Meteoriten, pp. 149-150 and 152. 



4. 1884: MEUXTER. Meteorites, p. 38. 



5. 1885: BREZIXA. Wiener Sammlung, pp. 218 and 234. 



6. 1893: MEUNIER. Revision des fers meieoriques, pp. 15 and 18. 



7. 1895: BREZINA. Wiener Sammlung. pp. 290 and 303. 



8. 1907: FAKRIXGTON. Meteorite Studies II. Publ. Field Columbian Mus., Geol. Ser., vol. 3, pp. 125-126. 



Poplar Camp. See Poplar Hill. 



