146 G. F. Kunz — Meteoric Iron from West Virginia 



kindness of Major Du Bois, Mr. J. F. Hoard and Dr. John N. 

 Tilden, who went to considerable trouble in ascertaining it, I 

 am able to announce the true locality. 



Mr. Hoard writes that the iron was found on land belonging 

 to Maston Christian, situated on the " Old Fork " of Jenny's 

 Creek, a tributary of the "Tug Fork" of Big Sandy Biver 

 (Tug Fork being the boundary line between West Virginia 

 and Kentucky), in the upper end of Wayne County. The 

 pieces were all found in the creek bed, i. e. the ravine or gulch 

 through which the creek flows. The first piece, weighing 

 probably two or three pounds, was found by Christian's wife 

 sometime earlier than the spring of 1383. It was supposed to 

 be simply a rich "kidney " of limonite, and was soon lost sight 

 of. In the spring of 1883, however, a second piece was found 

 by Christian himself while drifting staves in the creek. This 

 piece, which weighed about twenty-three pounds, created con- 

 siderable excitement and speculation. It is even stated that a 

 shrewd speculator, who had in his possession a lump of the 

 metal, had realized largely by burying it on different lands, 

 digging it up again, and then selling the pieces of property 

 successively as being silver-bearing. The rumor was current 

 that the vein was from nine to sixteen inches thick. It was 

 broken up and distributed among several parties interested in the 

 find, and as it was friable, much of it was lost in this manner. 

 About the first of December, 1885, a third fragment was picked 

 up by Mr. Christian in a pool i f still water, only about fifteen or 

 twenty feet from where he had found the other. It weighs 535 

 grams (about seventeen ounces), is all broken except one side 

 which is altered to limonite and has no visible trace of unal- 

 tered crust. Its measurements are 88 nun , 57 mm , and 46 mm . The 

 total amount found thus far in the three pieces is probably 

 twenty-six or twenty-seven pounds. Both of these latter pieces 

 were found in water and had a coating of rust or earthy mat- 

 ter similar to that found on " kidneys " of ore, which was 

 removed easily with the bands or by washing. 



The iron is octahedral and made up of crystalline blocks 

 of plessite and kamacite, irregular in shape, brittle, having 

 rounded ends and cleaving readily. Between these are also 

 thin, springy and flexible folia or plates of schreibersite, some 

 of which are 6 or 8 mm square. The latter mineral was also 

 observed in two other small pieces sent to me. Troilite was 

 also observed in these. The original weight of the piece loaned 

 me for description was 275 grams; one small slice of 34'5 

 grams weight had been removed to show the internal structure, 

 so that the larger piece, fig. 3, now weighs 228*2 grams. The 

 three cuts show the exact size of these pieces, and the mark- 

 in o-s on the etched surface as well as the octahedral structure 



