NAME 503 



inappropriate and should be supplanted. The mound is not a butte in 

 any sense, having no property of form or structure to which the term is 

 correctly applied. The name mountain is also wide of the mark in 

 referring to a height of only 160 feet. 



The adjective name "Coon" is meaningless, for no variety of animal 

 (either carnivore or human) ever known by the name is found in the 

 region. Mr Holsinger has sought to find the origin of the name, but 

 has no clue except that stock men say that it was called "Coon Butte" as 

 a landmark to locate a pool of water some miles eastward, known as "Coon 

 Tank." 



The important, striking, and positive topographic feature is not the 

 mound or circular rim, but the depression. The name crater is appro- 

 priate with reference to the form, and significant and accurate under 

 either hypothesis of origin, as the term crater is generic, being applied 

 to cavities made by projectiles as well as by explosion. The name is 

 euphonic and is in common use in descriptions of the feature. 



As a particularizing adjective the term "Meteor" is entirely appro- 

 priate, under either theory of crater origin, on account of its association 

 with the most interesting of known siderites. The reasonably certain 

 conclusion that the crater is the effect of impact adds force to the ad- 

 jective. Moreover, for some time the U. S. Post Office located near Mr 

 Holsinger's camp with the name Meteor, Arizona, gives an official stand- 

 ing to the word. 



The name "Canyon Diablo crater" would not be inappropriate, but it 

 has not the brevity nor the euphony of the name proposed. 



Appendix (November 10, 1907) 



The above paper gives the status of the Meteor Crater problem at the 

 time of its presentation before the Society, December 29, 1906. 



During the past summer the drill has been kept busy in the crater, and 

 the results are summarized as follows in a letter from Mr Tilghman, 

 dated ISTovember 1, 1907 : 



"During the season of 1907 sixteen bore holes have been drilled in tlie 

 eastern portion of the floor of the crater, to an average depth of between 670 

 and 880 feet. Thirteen of these bore holes have showed undoubted meteoric 

 material at depths of from 400 to 680 feet below the floor of the crater and in a 

 zone from 20 to 100 feet in thickness. This meteoric material consists of (1) 

 silica powder cemented into greenish lumps with a glassy, slag-like material ; 

 (2) a black, vitreous material, both of these containing iron and nickel in 

 large quantities; (3) small grains of native metal containing the same ingre- 

 dients, supposed to be schreibersite. 



