IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
173-. 
A notable instance of tlie exceptional frequency of meteoric irons in 
desert regions and one which has recently attracted wide attention from 
scientists, is that of the Canyon Diablo falls in eastern Arizona, first 
brought to notice by Footefi" Twenty miles east of that isolated and ma- 
jestic pile of volcanics known as the San Francisco mountains and rising 
abruptly out of the vast even plain forming the general surface of the 
. high plateau, is a low mound locally called Coon Butte. The center of 
this low elevation is occupied by a crater-like depression about 1,000 feet 
across. In the vicinity of this hill such large amounts of meteoric iron 
have been collected from time to time as to give rise to the fantastic notion 
that the crater was produced by an enormous meteorite striking the earth 
at this point, t the impact causing the fragments to be scattered about in 
all directions. As a matter of fact meteoric irons are no more abundant 
around Coon Butte than they are in other parts of the dry country, or 
probably in the desert tracts of the globe generally. At Coon Butte, a 
large company has been led into expending thousands of dollars in sink- 
ing shafts and in drilling for the suposed heavenly iron-body deeply 
buried in the bowels of the earth. The central depression itself is to all 
appearances a true volcanic crater of the explosive typep but the acci- 
dental finding of many pieces of meteoric iron within it and about it has. 
stimulated the immagination of observers, who have given undue weight 
to these occurrences as indicative of the origin of the crater. The occur- 
rence of such meteorites instead of being special and novel, is general and 
wide-spread in desert regions. It is to these arid tracts of the globe that 
we must look for the greatest extension of our knowledge concerning me- 
teoritic materials. 
It is to the desert regions likewise that we must turn for information 
regarding the character of the rain of stellar dust. The remarkable pre- 
valency of black-sand grains in the desert soils has generally escaped 
the notice of travelers. On the vast high plains of the dry Mexican 
plateau, metallic particles occur abundantly in soil, miles . away from the 
mountains and from outcrops of igneous rocks. The plains are so level,, 
the distances from the mountains so great, and the rain-fall so scanty as 
to preclude the easy transportation of these heavy particles by means of 
water ; while their high specific gravity must prevent their movement by 
means of the winds. Yet after the severe rain-showers which occur at 
rare intervals, when little rills traverse the surface in all directions, con- 
siderable quantities of the '' iron-sands” accumulate along the paths of 
* American Jour. Sci., (3), Vol. XLI, p. 413, 1891. 
iSmithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. L, p. 461, 1908. 
IBull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. XVIII, p. 721, 1907. 
