G. P. Merrill— New Stony Meteorite. 357 



had been broken away to send to the Museum previously for 

 examination. 



This and the others examined are covered with a dull brown- 

 black, slightly rough crust of approximately a millimeter in 

 thickness, 'showing no traces of flow structure nor perceptible 

 thickening in any part such as would indicate the position of 

 the block in its flight through the air. The surfaces are, on 

 the whole, rather free from pittings. Sundry darker streaks 

 running parallel with the broader faces suggest a lack of homo- 

 geneity or a possible Assuring of the mass. 



The broken surface shows the stone to be very indistinctly 

 chondritic and of a color even lighter gray than the Mocs or 

 Drake Creek, Tennessee stone, which it closely resembles. 

 With a pocket lens abundant metallic points are visible. 



Under the microscope the stone is found to consist essentially 

 of olivine and enstatite in characteristic jumbled, granular 

 crystalline forms, interspersed with larger irregular granules and 

 indistinctly outlined chond rules of the same material, together 

 with blebs of metallic iron and troilite. As already noted, the 

 chondritic structure is quite inconspicuous on a broken surface, 

 the individual chondrules consisting of irregularly rounded, oval 

 and sometimes angular aggregates of olivines in granular and 

 grate-like forms, or enstatites in eccentric radiating masses, in 

 either instance the interstices being often occupied by a color- 

 less mineral identified as feldspar. In a single instance a chon- 

 drule was noted consisting of a coal-black dust-like material 

 interspersed with a few blebs of troilite, the whole being nearly 

 surrounded ■ by the colorless zone of feldspar (?), the appear- 

 ance in an ordinary light being practically identical with the 

 black chondrule from the meteorite of Chateau Renard, as fig- 

 ured by Tschermak.* The mineral identified as a plagioclase 

 feldspar occurs in small, perfectly clear and colorless intersti- 

 tial forms, so lacking in crystalline outline and cleavage as at 

 first to suggest a residual glass. Extinction angles are quite 

 unsatisfactory, the dark waves sweeping across the face of the 

 crystals in a manner indicative of a condition of strain ; and, 

 were it not for an occasional particle with inconspicuous twin 

 bands, the real nature of the mineral would be in doubt. It 

 was, unquestionably, the last mineral to crystallize, is quite free 

 from enclosures, and occupies the interstices of the olivines 

 and enstatites, often partially enwrapping them, very like a 

 glass, but between crossed nicols polarizing faintly in light and 

 dark colors and breaking up into granular masses comparable 

 with the secondary feldspars in the drusy cavities of metamor- 

 phic rocks. Aside from occurring between the bars and radi- 

 ating columns of the chondrules, as already mentioned, it is scat- 



* Die mikroskopische Beschaffenheit der Meteoriten, pi. 17, fig. 3. 



