July 11, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



67 



SHORTER ARTICLES. 

 A NEW METEORITE FROM KANSAS. 



The Field Columbian Museum has recently 

 received a meteorite seen to fall in Saline 

 Township, Sheridan Co., Kansas. The chief 

 observer of the fall was Mr. S. A. Sutton, 

 of Hoxie, Kansas, and he was also the finder 

 of the mass. The fall took place November 

 15, 189S, at about 9 :30 p.m., the circum- 

 stances being thus described by Mr. Sutton: 

 On the date mentioned he was about to retire 

 for the night when a great light seemed to 

 flash in his house accompanied by a rushing 

 noise. He supposed a large lamp in an ad- 

 joining room was exploding, but on hurrying 

 to the room saw instead a great fiery mass 

 passing the window near him. Its path was 

 nearly horizontal and the direction of motion 

 northwesterly. The light given off was white 

 and intense like that of an electric light, and 

 a fiery trail several hundred feet long with 

 sparks of various colors followed in its wake. 

 The whole made a beautiful as well as awe- 

 inspiring spectacle. The light was so intense 

 as to illuminate the entire house and was no- 

 ticed by other members of the family besides 

 Mr. Sutton. 



Whether it was noticed by others in the re- 

 gion has not been positively ascertained as yet, 

 but as the territory is sparsely populated it 

 may be that no other observer will be found. 



Mr. Sutton, being a surveyor by profession, 

 at once began to form as accurate estimates 

 as possible of the speed, direction of motion, 

 etc., of the mass, in order to enable him to 

 discover where it would be likely to strike the 

 earth. The speed he estimated at one mile 

 per second, the angle with the horizon as 25° 

 and that with the meridian as 20° west of 

 north. These estimates led him to conclude 

 that the point of fall would be about four 

 miles from his home, but all subsequent 

 searching in that region proved futile. At the 

 end of nearly three years, however, he made 

 a recalculation in which he assigned a greater 

 speed to the meteorite than he had before 

 done. This indicated that the point of fall 

 might have been about eight miles away. 

 Seeking in this locality, his efforts were re- 

 warded in the fall of 1901 by finding the me- 



teorite in the bank of a 'draw.' It had pene- 

 trated the soil to an underlying limestone 

 stratum on which it lay. The thickness of 

 soil at the time of excavation was consider- 

 able, but this might have undergone consider- 

 able change since the fall of the meteorite. 

 Great credit is certainly due Mr. Sutton for 

 the skill and persistence with which he follow- 

 ed up his observations. 



The mass as received at the Museum has 

 the form of an irregular, somewhat tabular, 

 polyhedron bounded by eight approximately 

 plane surfaces. Its weight is 68 pounds 10 

 ounces. It is covered, except where a few 

 small fragments have been broken off, with a 

 thick black crust contrasting in color to the 

 dark gray hue of the interior. The crust is 

 stippled with protruding metallic grains, for 

 the most part coated with a black oxide of 

 iron, but occasionally showing bright, and 

 nickel-white in color. One of these protrud- 

 ing grains reaches a diameter of 5 mm.; the 

 others are smaller. Cracks through the crust 

 give the meteorite a ' baked' appearance. 

 There are numerous characteristic pittings, 

 for the most part oval in shape and having a 

 length of about 2 cm. A slight coating of 

 carbonate of lime occurs in places over the 

 surface, doubtless formed upon the meteor- 

 ite while it lay in the soil, but aside from this 

 the mass has a remarkably fresh and unoxi- 

 dized appearance. The texture of the stone 

 is quite firm and compact. Even to the naked 

 eye a chondritic structure is apparent and 

 chondri about 3 nuii. in diameter can be 

 broken out. 



A brief chemical and microscopical exam- 

 ination shows the chief constituent minerals 

 to be chrysolite, bronzite and nickel-iron, a 

 fuller account of which will be given in a 

 future Museum piiblication. The specific 

 gravity is 3.62. Having fallen in Saline 

 Township, this will be the name used for des- 

 ignating the meteorite. The region in which 

 it fell is one which has already within an 

 area of 85 by 120 miles yielded five and pos- 

 sibly six distinct fiuds of meteorites of such 

 character that they must be considered sepa- 

 rate falls. Now that an observed fall has 

 taken place in the region, it would seem that 



