W. E. Ridden — Two masses of Meteoric Iron. 461 



in the surface soil, and thus their history is incomplete. These 

 two meteoric irons are, however, unusual in several of their 

 characteristics and the writer has concluded to describe them 

 and give them careful illustration. 



Both of these masses came into the writer's possession at 

 nearly the same time and from the same indirect source, and he 

 hence describes them together. They were both on exhibition 

 at the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in 

 New Orleans, where they first came under his personal notice, 

 and later into his possession. They were received in Newark, 

 N. J., last June, at the close of the Exposition, since which time 

 several notices of them have appeared in the local press and in 

 other publications. 



The larger mass, the one from Arkansas, will be noticed first. 

 Figure 1 gives a fair idea of its exterior appearance. 



1. The Independence County, Arkansas, Meteorite. 



The following extracts from a letter from Mr. John Hind- 

 man of Elmo, Ark., dated July 2nd, 1885, sets forth the man- 

 ner and time of its discovery. 



"This meteor was found about the last of June, 1884, by my 

 stepson George W. Price, on a mountain known as the ' Joe 

 Wright Mt.,' a small eminence situated about seven miles east of 

 Batesville (Independence County, Arkansas). The soil there was 

 cut into deep gullies, which, farther down the mountain side con- 

 verged into one. It was where these gullies met that the meteor 

 was found. The town of Sulphur Rock is about three miles dis- 

 tant, southwest, from the place of the discovery." 



The weight of the mass is ninety-four pounds. It is seven- 

 teen inches long and eight inches thick in its greatest diameter. 

 Its surface is pitted with ovoid depressions of various sizes, 

 which lie with their longer axes in nearly the same general 

 direction. The exterior was almost black in color and looked 

 blistered. ISTo rusty appearance or alteration from oxidation 

 was noticed on any part, which would go far to prove that this 

 mass had not long been on the earth. Its size is unusual, yet 

 several masses described within the past two years exceed it in 

 this respect. Its most interesting feature is the presence of a 

 hole through it, near the edge, measuring five-eighths of an 

 inch in diameter at its smallest part. The situation of this hole 

 is shown in the engraving (fig. 1) by the tie of a ribbon that 

 passes through it. The length of the hole is one and three- 

 quarter inches, and it is cone-shaped from both sides. 



This remarkable feature is almost without a parallel among 

 meteorites. It reminds us of that great ring of meteoric iron,* 



* See this Journal, II, vol. xiii, p. 289, and vol. xrx, p. 161. 



