METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. 381 



The second is from the Columbus (Ohio) State Journal: "A meteoric display, which, for singularity and beauty, 

 few persons in a lifetime have the good fortune to behold, was witnessed by six or seven persons, myself included, on 

 the evening of December 21, 1876, at just 9 o'clock. Four of us were in the caboose car, and two or three others on 

 the engine of the freight train, due in Columbus at 9.20 p. m., on the Cleveland, Mount Vemon and Columbus Rail- 

 road, and within about 4 miles of the depot. At that point the track runs nearly north and south. The cluster or 

 flock of meteors, from 40 to 60 in number, varying in apparent size from a water bucket to that of large apples, were 

 seemingly huddled together like a flock of wild geese and moved with about the same velocity and grace of regularity. 

 The color of their light was a yellowish-red, resembling the light from the red balls of fire thrown out by the explo- 

 sions of certain kinds of rockets. There was no illumination, nimbus, or trail from them. The display was a little 

 below an angle of 45 degrees from our point of observation, and seemed not over a quaiter of a mile distant from the 

 rear end of our train. The course was from west to east, crossing the railroad at nearly right angles. The party on 

 our engine, and our conductor, who was looking out of the rear window of our car, made the discovery at about the 

 same moment, in a westerly direction. When seen by the rest of us, the meteors were just passing over the track and 

 very slowly approaching the earth. I can not pretend to put this statement in scientific form, having witnessed it 

 from a moving train, but simply state the facts as they appeared to myself and others as worthy of note." 



The third notice attended one of the specimens sent me and consists of a letter addressed to Professor Kirkwood 

 from Mr. A. J. Norris, the finder of this stone: "Inclosed you will find a specimen of the meteorite. The circum- 

 stances under which the stone was found are these: Hearing a rumbling noise, I stepped out of the house and heard 

 the stone fall. I marked the direction of the sound, and the next morning repaired to the field whence it had pro- 

 ceeded , where I discovered it lying upon the snow. Lsaw two places where it had previously struck and from whence 

 it had bounded to its resting place. No appearance of any other stone was visible in the region. Its weight was about 

 three-quarters of a pound." 



The following is a letter (dated Bloomington, Indiana, January 19) from Professor Kirkwood to myself: "You 

 were kind enough to express a wish that I would furnish some notes in regard to the meteor. I have wiitten many 

 letters of inquiry to some of which I have received replies. I have also a number of newspaper accounts of the phe- 

 nomenon. I regret to say, however, that many of the statements made by observers are so inaccurate and contra- 

 dictory as to be of little value. Being busy with other matters, I placed nearly all of them in the hands of Professor 

 Wylie." The following conclusions, derived from the observations at Bloomington, Indiana, and Wooster, Wayne 

 County, Ohio, can be relied upon as nearly correct: 



" Rev. Dr. Wylie, professor of natural philosophy in the Indiana State University, noticed the point in a tree appar- 

 ently passed by the meteor. The angle of elevation was subsequently measured and found to be about 15 degrees. 

 But the meteor passed the meridian 131 miles north. These data, making allowance for the curvature of the earth's 

 surface, give about 38 miles as the height of the body when passing the boundary line between Pulaski and Fulton 

 Counties. Indiana. At Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, the meteor apparently passed a particular point of the steeple 

 of a public building. From this observation the apparent altitude when over Lake Erie, immediately north of the 

 city, was found by Prof. Samuel J. Kirkwood to have been about 24 degrees, corresponding to a true height of 28 or 29 

 miles. The most western point from which I received a report is Emporia, Kansas. It passed that place a few degrees 

 southeast of the zenith. He thinks the meteor became visible over the northwest comer of Texas, at an elevation of 

 70 or 80 miles. The estimates of time for the meteor are so discordant that it seems impossible to determine whether 

 it was moving in an ellipse, a parabola, or an hyperbola. 



It belongs, by way of eminence, to my order of Oolitic, of the class Litholites, and resembles most closely the Pegu 

 (Indian) stone of December 27, 1857, particularly in the character of its crust and in its pisiform external structure. 

 The two stones are not unlike in color and the facility with which they may be broken, both yielding to separation 

 when in small masses under the mere strength of the fingers. The thickness of the crust in each is double that in the 

 majority of litholites. The general tint of color is also the same in both. In the Rochester stone, however, the shade 

 is less gray, from the greater prevalence of an almost pulverulent, nearly white mineral, in which the dark ash-gray 

 globules are imbedded. This white mineral forms less than one-tenth of the mass. The globules vary in size from a 

 millet seed up to that of a peppercorn. Their shape is almost perfectly spherical, and plainly indicates an origin from 

 fusion, the surfaces of many of them being obviously mammillary, while internally they present a porcelaineous, 

 compact structure. 



The globules are probably forsterite, of a variety nearly identical with boltonite. This appears the more likely 

 from the circumstance that those situated just below the crust have the yellowish tint acquired by boltonite after its 

 subjection to heat with access of air; and it is presumable that this alteration of the globules in the meteorite took place 

 on its entrance into our atmosphere when the fusion of the surface occurred. 



The white semi-pulverulent basis of the stone I take to be chladnite (MgjSi 3 ). In one of my specimens it shows 

 itself in its characteristic loosely crystalline structure and there closely resembles this species as seen in the Bishopsville 

 (March 25, 1843) meteorite. 



The metallic iron (chamasite?), as in the Pegu stone, is very obvious, and rather evenly distributed though probably 

 not exceeding 1 per cent in quantity. In place of being shapeless grains or points, or in curved wirelike fibers, it is 

 semicrystalline in structure, showing occasional rectangular and triangular facets. Troilite is barely visible at two 

 minute points in the specimens thus far examined. Two distinct grains of chrysolite of the size of half a rice grain are 

 present, showing in each case the cleavage, color, and luster of this species as existing in'Krasnojarsk meteoric iron. 

 Moreover, these grains have not the perfect spherical form of the forsterite globules. 



