THE RICHARDTON METEORITE 433 



some places the branches reunite, in the manner of anastomosis. 

 Here and there within them there is a concentration of troilite 

 and iron. The traces of the veins stand out Hke welts upon the 

 unbroken surfaces (Fig. i) ; otherwise the surface of the meteorite 

 seems fairly smooth, although variegated with the characteristic 

 shallow depressions, like thumb-prints, which are common to 

 many stony meteorites. In addition to the subparallel veins 

 before noted, there are at least two others roughly at right angles 

 to them, which are less clearly marked than the series of six. It 

 may be there are really more than two in this group. In any case, 

 they are not prominent, and either they are discontinuous, or 

 else the vein-filling material is wanting in places, making them 

 inconspicuous on that account. 



The crust seems to be of equal thickness on each face, appar- 

 ently being a secondary fusion surface everywhere except on the 

 side shown in Fig. i, which appears also to have been the side 

 protected from the rush of air after disruption of the meteorite. 

 All the surfaces show the system of tiny cracks, like the crazing 

 of china, which is common to stony meteorites. . 



On places from which the crust is broken it can be seen that 

 the matrix of the stone is pale gray, speckled with pale brown 

 chondrules as large as 3 mm. in diameter. The matrix is friable 

 and easily broken, the chondrules breaking freely out of the matrix. 

 There appears to be a good deal of troilite, but the iron does not 

 show so clearly because it lacks the reflecting fracture faces which 

 make the troilite apparent. 



2. The Loran specimen weighing 7 lbs. ^ oz. (3,186 gm.) is 

 an irregular hexahedron with three pairs of subparallel sides. 

 It may be described as an irregular rhombohedron, of which two 

 axes are at right angles to one another, the third axis being at 

 approximately right angles to one axis and inclined at an angle 

 of about 80° to the other. 



The crust is almost complete except for one side, which is a 

 nearly plane fracture surface. Almost parallel to the fractured 

 face are veins which can be traced completely around the stone. 

 The fracture face itself follows one of the veins, so that much of 

 the surface is vein material. This vein is cut by two short 



