248 Professor C. U. Shepard on Meteorites. 



" The three pieces into which it broke on striking the 

 ground fit together exactly,, so as to reproduce the original 

 stone, with a complete coating over the whole, except on one 

 side, where several small fragments were broken out by the 

 fall. These were gathered up carefully, and preserved by the 

 finder." 



This stone is perhaps the most remarkable one thus far 

 described, for its highly regular prismatic figure, which at 

 once suggests the idea of a portion of a basaltic column. 

 Nor can the geologist look upon it without feeling almost 

 certain that it once formed part of some extensive formation 

 in the world from whence it came. 



jrfT 



5. Meteoric Stone of Waterloo, Seneca Co., N. Y. ; fell in the 

 summer of 1826 or 1827. 



For my first knowledge of this remarkable stone, I am in- 

 debted to Prof. 0. Root of Hamilton College, from whose 

 letter, dated Clinton, N. Y., Jan 26, 1850, the following 

 abstracts are made. " On receiving your note, I wrote to 

 my friends in Geneva, for the meteorite mentioned in my 

 letter to President Hitchcock. Judge Watkins very willingly 

 gave the specimen, and it is now in my possession, subject 

 to your order. The piece is not large (it weighs about 1000 

 grs.), as the original mass had been divided two or three 

 times. Not being familiar with such productions, my opinion 

 concerning its genuineness is of no value. Judge Watkins, 

 however, is a gentleman of high respectability, and I have 

 confidence in what he relates of the history of this stone. 

 My attention was directed to the subject in the following 

 manner : A year or two ago, while shewing some gentlemen 

 a fragment of the Otsego meteoric iron, one of them observed 

 that he remembered a report many years back of a stone 

 falling through a roof in Waterloo, or in that vicinity. 

 After many inquiries, I at last found the stone, or a frag- 

 ment of it, with Judge Watkins. He relates that a hole 

 was discovered in the roof of his mill, directly over a bin of 

 wheat, that the opening was made through the shingles 

 where the roof-boards were about five inches apart (although 

 a piece was split from the roof-board on one side), and that 



