Hamblen County^ Tennessee^ Meteorite. 153 



in the paper above quoted, the present writer would suggest 

 the following as the probable mineral nature of the stone, 

 including the metallic portion. 



(1) Nickeliferous iron. 



(2) Enstatite. 



(3) Dial! age. 



(4) Anorthite. 



(5) Olivine (or monticellite). 



(6) Oldhamite (or secondary gypsum). 



(7) Lawrencite. 



(8) Troilite. 



(9) Schreibersite. 



According to the prevailing system of classification the 

 stone must be called a mesosiderite ; viewed from the stand- 

 point of terrestrial petrography, it would be classed as a gab- 

 bro with gradations toward pyroxenite. 



A few words more may well be written concerning the 

 structure of the stone. This, as above noted, is crystalline 

 granular throughout, no glass whatever being detected. In 

 the finer-grained siliceous portions the constituents have 

 undoubtedly all originated by crystallization in the positions 

 they now occupy and have not suffered at all from dynamic 

 agencies. The coarser portions of the rock, and particularly 

 those in immediate juxtaposition with the metallic iron, have a 

 strongly marked cataclastic structure, the feldspars existing 

 mainly as angular fragments, as shown in fig. 2. All structural 

 features point to the injection of the metallic iron, or at least 

 to its reduction to the metallic state, subsequently to the solidifi- 

 cation of the stone, the same being accompanied by a shatter- 

 ing and more or less displacement of the minerals in the near 

 vicinity. In the more siliceous portions the iron exists only in 

 small round blebs, and seems to have been wholly without 

 effect on the structural features ; but where existing in masses 

 of some size, as in fig. 1, the appearance is at once suggestive 

 of subsequent injections and consequent disruption of parti- 

 cles. 



The occurrence of the feldspars to the exclusion of the 

 enstatites in the immediate vicinity of the metallic portions, 

 would be extremely suggestive could we consider both as prod- 

 ucts of solidification in place, from an iron-bearing magma, in 

 the one case the elements combining to form an iron rich sili- 

 cate (enstatite), and in the other, metallic iron and feldspar. 

 The extremely fragmental condition of the feldspars, particu- 

 larly when closely associated with the iron, suggests, however, 

 that these were in a crystalline condition prior to the injection 

 of the metallic portions, and hence that no such extreme 

 phase of magmatic differentiation could have taken place. 



It should be noted that the stone, as shown by sections cut 

 from different fragments, is quite variable, both in structure 

 and in the relative proportions of its constituent minerals. 



U. S. National Museum, April, 1896. 



