NIAGARA METEORITE. 



In the winter of 1900 I was informed by Mr. Vennor, a young 

 mineral collector of Rochester, N. Y., that he had seen in the 

 possession of one of his friends, now living in this city, what he 

 supposed to be a small iron meteorite, which had been picked 

 up on a ranch in North Dakota, some years before. After some 

 persuasion Mr. Vennor succeeded in getting his friend to permit 

 me to examine the specimen, which I saw at a glance was a 

 meteorite with marked octahedral cleavage where it had been 

 broken, and finally purchased it for Ward's Natural Science 

 establishment. 



This meteorite, which belongs to the siderite class, was found 

 two miles southeast of Niagara, Forks county, N. D., in the 

 early part of August, 1879, by Mr. F. Talbot, the son of the 

 lady from whom Mr. Vennor obtained it for me. Mr. Talbot 

 was making a collection of the various rocks and minerals in his 

 neighborhood, and in his search for these discovered the above 

 meteorite on the ranch owned by his father. As Mr. Talbot has 

 'since passed away, the specimen had been retained in his family 

 rather as a keepsake in remembrance of him than as a visitor 

 from outer space. 



When I received the meteorite it weighed 115 grams and 

 was about 30x40 X 50 mm in dimensions. It was very much oxi- 

 dized, of a brownish-black color, and showed no trace of the 

 original crust whatever. In sawing it we succeeded in getting 

 but three sizeable pieces, as it crumbled into small fragments 

 from 2 to 4 or 5 grams in weight in cutting. The largest piece 

 obtained of the unoxidized iron suitable for etching weighed 

 26 grams and is now in the Ward-Coonley collection of 

 meteorites. The only other piece suitable for etching weighed 

 17 grams and is in the British Museum collection. The 

 largest fragment from the crumbled portion of the iron was a 

 fairly good tetrahedron, 24 X 23 X I 5 mm in its greatest diame- 



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