Note on the Mart and Bluff Meteorites. 
O. O. CHARLTON, 
Professor of Science. Baylor University, Waco, Texas. 
In January, 1888, the meteorite now known as the Payette County, or 
Bluff Meteorite, was purchased by the Ward Natural History establish- 
ment of Rochester, New York, from Mr. II. Hensoldt, who had been 
teaching near Bluff, Fayette county, Texas. It had been found some 
ten years previously on a farm then owned by Mr. Frank Rainocet, who 
now lives on another farm near Bluff. When secured by the Wards the 
stone weighed about 280 pounds. It is listed in their catalogue as a 
Siderolite. 
It was described by Mr, J. E. Whitfield and Mr. Geo. P. Merrill in the 
American Journal of Science, August, 1888. They found it to "consist 
essentially of enstatite and olivine with a good deal of nickel, iron and 
some pyrrhotite.” The iron contained over fifteen per cent, of nickel 
and two per cent, of cobalt. A large part of the original mass has been 
cut into slices and quite widely distributed, though the Wards still have 
over fifty pounds of the stone. 
Early this year (1900) Mr. C. L. Melcher, of Swiss Alp, near Bluff, 
sent me two stones which he' supposed to be meteorites. Fragments 
from them were examined by Mr. George P. Merrill, of the United States 
National Museum, who concluded that the two stones were parts of the 
fall which had furnished the large Bluff meteorite of twelve years ago. 
The total weight of these two stones, and a third small stone recently 
'found, is 31J pounds. The largest one of these is now owned by Mr. 
Henry A. Ward, of Rochester, the other two by Baylor University. 
The Mart Iron Meteorite was found by Mr. Watts Vaughan while 
ploughing on a farm south of Mart, Texas, in 1895. It lay about eight 
inches beneath the surface of the ground, and its presence was made 
known by the plow scraping against it. During the summer of 1899 it 
was sent to the United States National Museum, where it was examined 
by Mr. George P. Merrill. In September, 1899, the ownership of the 
iron was transferred to Baylor University, after which Mr. Merrill pho- 
tographed it, prepared a cast of it, cut a slice from it and polished and 
etched the exposed surface of the principal mass. The slice was retained 
for use in the preparation of a full report, which report is, perhaps, now 
ready for publication. 
