378 MEMOIRS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, VOL. XIII. 



6. 1848: SHEPARD. Report on meteorites. Amer. Journ. ScL, 2d ser., vol. 6, p. 411. 



7. 1863: ROSE. Meteoriten, pp. 27, 85, 86, 88, 89, 139, 147, and 154. 



8. 1858-1865: VON REICHENBACH. No. 5, p. 481; No. 6, p. 452; No. 9, pp. 159, 161, 169, 179; No. 11, p. 295; No. 



12, p. 454; No. 13, p. 361; No. 20, p. 626; No. 23, p. 369; and No. 25, p. 606. 



9. 1865: BUCHNER. Zweiter Nachtrag. Ann. Phys. und Chem., Poggendorff, Bd. 124, p. 574. 



10. 1867: GOEBEL. Kritische Uebersicht. Melanges phys^chim., Bd. 7, p. 325. 



11. 1870: RAMMELSBERO. Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Meteoriten. 3. Die Analyse der Silikate. C. Die Chondrite 



von Pultusk, Richmond u. Iowa. II. Richmond. Mon.-Ber. Berlin. Akad., 1870, pp. 453-457. (Analysis.) 



12. 1870: RAMMELSBERG. Meteoriten, pp. 103, 105, 106, 139, and 140. 



13. 1879: RAMMELSBERG. Meteoriten, pp. 24 and 25. 



14. 1884: MEUNIER. Meteorites, pp. 74, 79, 85, 93, 95, 97, 238-239 (illustration), and 395. 



15. 1883-1885: TSCHERMAK. Photographien, pp. 4 and 19. 



16. 1885: BREZINA. Wiener Sammlung, pp. 191 and 233. 



17. 1894: COHEN. Meteoritenkunde, pp. 200, 283, and 317. 



18. 1895: BREZINA. Wiener Sammlung, pp. 259 and 260. 



RICH MOUNTAIN. 



Jackson County, North Carolina. 

 Latitude 35 2' N., longitude 83 2' W. 

 Stone. Veined intermediate chondrite, Cia. 

 Fell 2 p. m. June 30, 1903; described 1907. 

 Weight, 668 grams (1.2 Ibs). 



This meteorite was described by Merrill * as follows : 



The meteorite described below was received at the United States National Museum from Prof. H. H. Brimley, 

 curator of the State Museum at Raleigh, North Carolina. To him I am also indebted for most of the information relative 

 to its fall. 



The exact date of fall can not be given but it is stated as "about the 20th of June, 1903, and 2 o'clock in the day." 

 Concerning the phenomena of the fall, the following is gleaned from a letter of Mr. E. A. Cook, of Rich Mountain, to 

 Mr. Brimley: 



"It [the meteorite] was going nearly due south; I did not see it, though it passed directly over my place. It 

 made a rumbling sound something like a tornado of wind or the pouring of water." The explosion Mr. Cook compares 

 to a "large blast," the first and loudest being followed by lesser sounds compared to the shooting of a self-acting pistol. 

 Reports from the adjacent parts of South Carolina were to the effect that the passage of the stone was heard and seen 

 there and it created great excitement. It was also seen by people living 10 miles northwest of Rich Mountain, who 

 reported it as looking like a ball of fire the size of a flour barrel. The single piece secured passed through the top of a 

 green tree, cutting off the leaves and small limbs, and struck the ground not more than 40 feet from a man standing in 

 a field, who dug it up and gave it to Mr. Cook. Other fragments were reported to have been found across the State line 

 in South Carolina. Such, however, have not come into the possession of the writer, nor has he been able to get track 

 of them. The single piece which has thus far come to light weighed 668 grams; actual size, 122 mm. in length, 76 mm. 

 in breadth by 44 mm. in thickness. This is obviously a freshly broken piece from a larger mass, the crust on the flat 

 surface being very thin, not nearly equal to that on the rounded surface. There is no fluting or grooving to indicate 

 the orientation during flight, but the smoothness of the rounded point suggests at least that this formed the nose or 

 breast of the stone in its passage through the air. The proximity of this locality to that of the Hendersonville meteorite 

 recently described by the writer might at first suggest that it represented a part of the same fall. The testimony of 

 eyewitnesses to the phenomenon and the freshness of the sample as compared with the last named, however, preclude 

 any such conclusion. The close similarity of the stone to that of Bath Furnace, Kentucky, as described by Ward, is 

 also worthy of note, although there is an interval of over six months between the dates of fall. 



The black crust is dull and somewhat rough. On the recently broken, flat surface, where the crust is thinnest, and 

 on the rounded surface the metallic-iron particles project, seemingly having resisted the frictional heat of the atmos- 

 phere more than did the silicate portions. A cut surface shows a gray, compact, indistinctly chondritic structure, with 

 gray and more rarely white "kugels" and an about medium scattering of metallic iron and troilite. The texture is 

 coarser, less compact, and in color a lighter gray than that of the Hendersonville stone, but closely like that of Bath 

 Furnace. The stone is traversed by numerous fine, threadlike, black veins, often branched, and without common 

 orientation. Although sought for with care, no certain indication of movement along these lines could be discovered. 

 Indeed, the evidence was almost wholly to the contrary, the veins sometimes passing directly through the chondri 

 without evident relative displacement of the portions thus separated. 



Under the microscope the structure is somewhat obscure, the chondrules being often fragmental and not strongly 

 differentiated from the fine, pulverulent ground. Olivine and enstatite, the latter prevailing, with an occasional 

 monoclinic pyroxene, are the principal silicate constituents, the first named in chondrules of the polysomatic and 

 barred type, and in scattered granules; the enstatite in cryptocrystalline radiate forms, granules, and occasional rela- 

 tively large, almost colorless and clear plates. Interspersed with these are minute colorless areas, showing no crystalline 

 outlines, cleavage, or other evidences of crystal structure, little relief and polarizing only in light and dark colors. 



