770 
ters in height, occupying an area which a 
little more than forty years ago the owner 
used for a hay meadow. 
I need not cite further cases. 
who has seen and studied the forest areas 
in eastern Nebraska, will be able to doubt 
that they are spreading where they are 
given a fair opportunity and are not pre- 
vented by man or his domestic animals. 
CHarues E. BEssEy. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. 
PRELIMINARY NOTE ON NEW METEORITES 
FROM ALLEGAN, MICHIGAN AND 
MART, TEXAS. 
A LITTLE after 8 o’clock on the morning 
of July 10, 1899, there fell on what is locally 
known as Thomas Hill, on the Saugatuck 
road, in Allegan, Michigan, a stony meteor- 
ite, the total weight of which cannot have 
been far from 70 pounds, although unfor- 
tunately it was badly shattered in striking 
the ground and its exact weight can never be 
known. The main mass of the stone, which 
came into the possession of the National Mu- 
seum, weighed 624 pounds, with an addi- 
tional fragment weighing about 14 pounds. 
These with a 4 pound fragment sold to other 
parties, and very many small bits stated as 
varying from the size of a pea to that of a 
hickory nut, carried away by school child- 
ren and others, would readily bring the 
total weight up to the figure mentioned. 
According to the as yet unverified state- 
ment of a paper, the fall was accompanied 
by a ‘sudden report, like that of a distant 
cannon,’ this being immediately followed by 
a rumbling rushing noise similar to distant 
thunder with the addition of a hissing noise. 
Eye witnesses of the fall describe the stone 
as descending in a nearly vertical direction 
with an apparently slight incline from north 
to west. A slight bluish tinge and hazy 
appearance was noted, but no luminosity, 
though that the stone must have been 
SCIENCE. 
No one. 
[N. 8. Von. X. No. 256 
highly heated in its passage through the 
atmosphere is proven by its being com- 
pletely covered by a beautiful black crust, 
of about 2 mm. thickness. However this 
may be it was evidently scarcely more than 
warm when it reached the surface of the 
ground, for fibers of dry grass, leaves and 
roots which became firmly attached to its 
surface through impact, or even driven into 
crevices formed by the shock of striking 
the ground, were not charred in the least. 
The stone is reported to have been about 
18 inches long and 12 inches thick, and to 
have buried itself in the ground by 18 
inches where it fell. It was immediately 
exhumed, and is stated to have been ‘still 
warm’ when placed in the show windows 
of Messrs. Stern & Company, local clothing 
dealers. 
The stone as received at the Museum is 
polyhedral in outline, one end badly shat- 
tered, the larger surfaces often somewhat 
convex, and as above noted covered with a 
thin black crust which is irregularly 
checked by contraction and the shock of 
the fall. The structure is chondritic, and the 
essential constituents olivine and an ortho- 
rhombic pyroxene (enstatite), together with 
very finely disseminated metallic iron and 
undetermined sulphides. A causal inspec- 
tion fails to make certain the presence of 
feldspars. The stone therefore belongs to 
group 29, Kigelchen Chondrit (Cc), of 
Brezina. The texture is very fine, and 
uniform throughout, the chondrules, often 
beautiful spherical, rarely exceeding 2 mm. 
in diameter. These are sometimes wholly 
of radiating enstatites, or again of idiomor- 
phic olivines in a black glass. The mass is 
very friable, and though beautifully fresh 
and unoxidized, falls away readily to sand 
when pressed between the thumb and fin- 
gers. 
As stated in Science for November 10th, 
the stone will be analyzed and studied 
microscropically, after which it will be in 
