METEORIC STONES AND SHOOTING STARS. 739 



Warren County Meteorite. — On the morning of January 3d, 1877, just 

 about sunrise, as some wood-choppers were grinding their axes, they heard 

 a rushing sound in the air. Looking up, they beheld something strike the 

 limbs of the trees, dash through them and strike the ground. It seemed to 

 them to come from the northwest, and was of a somewhat conical shape, 

 with a probable weight of about 100 pounds. 



I visited the locality about two weeks after, ascertained the locality of 

 the fall to be Sec. 2, T. 46, R. 2, W., or about 4 miles southeast of Warren- 

 ton. That the meteor came from the northwest, striking the ground at 

 about an angle of 45°, crushing through the branches of a sugar tree, 

 breaking some limbs an inch in diameter. It seemed to have struck the 

 side of the tree, passing into the frozen ground about 4 inches, one piece 

 flying off about 70 feet to the leit; other fragments rebounding about 75 

 feet in front. It was of a bluish gray color, quite firable, and of rather 

 eoarse texture, with a black crust upon the outside nearly a sixteenth of an 

 inch thick. 



Dr. J. Lawrence Smith determined the specific gravity to be 3.47, and 

 composition — 



Nickeliferous iron 2.01 



Olivine minerals 76.00 



Bronzite and Pyroxene 18.00 



Troillite , 3.50 



Chrome iron 0.50 



Minute traces of Cobalt. 



Mr. Irish, of Iowa City, Iowa, informs me that at sunrise on the morn- 

 ing of the 3d there was observed, at an elevation of eO'', and reaching to 

 the horizon, a vivid and prolonged flash of a white light, and wide as the 

 full moon, beginning at a point and widening out as it proceeded. It dis- 

 appeared in the horizon at about S. 23°, B. true course. 



Mr. J. B. Johnston, of Decatur, Ills., saw the same flash at sunrise ; a 

 broad, bright track, beginning at 50° to 70° elevation, and running per- 

 pendicularly to the horizon. Its vanishing point bore S. 54°, 30° W. mage. 



Other less important falls are noted as having taken place in Missouri, 

 but the information concerning them is imperfect. 



Dr. B. F. Shumard communicated to the St. Louis Academy of Science, 

 and to the American Journal of Science, a notice of a fall having taken place 

 in St. Louis, at 11 a. m. of July 9th, 1862, of a very small meteorite. None 

 of the common minerals found in meteorites were recognised, except iron, 

 hence Dr. S. himself seemed to doubt its being a meteorite. 



Between 9 and 10 a. m., June 25, 1876, a small meteorite is stated to have 

 fallen upon the roof of Mr. Isaac Whitaker's house, JSfo. 556 Main street, 

 Kansas City, cutting a hole through the tin, but not passing through it. 

 Mr. J. D. Parker describes it in the American Journal of Science, Oct., 1876, 

 as being about one-third of an inch in thickness and resembling sulphuret 

 of iron. I have not heard of its being subjected to chemical analysis. 



