110 Dr. Walter Fligh t— On Meteorites. 



detonations occurred. In the last-mentioned district, and at places 

 as far as 60 miles distant, numerous red fragments were seen to fall. 

 He says, " I have had several persons looking for the meteorites 

 where the fall must have taken place ; but the whole district is 

 covered with dense forest, and is mountainous and broken, and the 

 ground was very soft from the long-continued rains preceding the 

 fall, so that no fragments have been found. All the observers of 

 the final explosion agree that the great bulk of the material was 

 thrown upward and backward upon the course of the meteor, as the 

 arrow-pointed dots in my sketch indicate. The luminous appearance 

 continued in sight for 15 minutes." 



Found 1875 (?).— Red River, northward of Young Co., Texas.^ 



There is preserved in the State collections at Austin a mass of 

 meteoric iron weighing 315 lbs., which is said to have been found on 

 the head waters of the Eed Eiver, northward of Young County. 



1875. Butler, Bates Co., Missouri.^ 



This iron has already been described by Broadhead' and Smith,^ 

 the latter finding it remarkable for the very large and regular 

 Wiedmannstattian figures which it displays. A specimen, weighing 

 1 kilog. 334: grammes, acquired by the Vienna Collection from Dr. 

 L. Smith, was found to have three etched surfaces nearly perpen- 

 dicular to each other. It was noticed that the greater part of the 

 iron had an even dull appearance, but in this lustreless iron grey 

 part lay numerous, in part individual, in part grouped together, 

 lamella3, of which four differently directed systems appear on the 

 sections. The lamellas together form a skeleton — or octohedral 

 skeleton — just as in Tschermak's Schematic, fig. 5,^ the crystal- 

 structure of iron indicates a hexahedral skeleton. 



The ground-mass, though lustreless and structureless, shows a 

 peculiar play of light, to which later reference will be made ; its 

 hairiness is remarkably low, a little below 4, being distinctly 

 scratched by fluorite. The system of lamellae are finely granular 

 and in several respects show the greatest resemblance with the 

 ground-mass (hardness, etc.) ; only in a few broader places a feebly 

 indicated granular structure shows itself, and recalls the balk iron of 

 other irons. Thelamellee are covered with band-iron (tanite) which 

 is recognized by its high lustre and pale isabel-yellow colour ; they 

 are very small, the nucleus and the two covers being in most cases 

 not more than -gV of a millimetre, and the length usually 15 to 

 20 mm. (some are 30 mm.). Where lamellas difi'erently directed 

 come together, one system is usually developed quite uninjured ; 



1 S. B. Buckley, " Second Animal Eeport of the Geological and Agricultural 

 Survey of Texas," Houston, Texas, 1876. 



2 A. Brezina, Sitzber. Akacl. JFiss. 1880, Ixxxii. Oct. Heft. 



3 Broadhead. Atner. Jotirn. Sc. [3], x. 401. 

 * Smith. Amer. Journ. Sc. [3], xiii. 211. 



5 Tschermak. Sitzber. A/cad. JFiss. Ixx. 1874, 443. 



