80 FIELD COLUMBIAN MusEUM—GEOLOGY, VOL. II. 
The names by which the falls are designated in the catalogue have 
been chosen with considerable care, and in a few instances depart from 
previous usage. According to the writer’s view, the name by which a 
meteorite is distinguished should be that of the nearest named locality. 
The desirability of this in enabling the place of fall or find quickly to be 
located at any time, without looking up the literature of the fall, can 
hardly be gainsaid. ‘The exact point of fall or find is a datum of im- 
portance, and one whose significance is becoming more and more appre- 
ciated. If this datum were in all cases expressed in the name of the 
meteorite, a vast amount of vexatious labor would be saved to students of 
meteorites. In the case of the meteorites of the United States, the custom, 
often traceable to foreign authorities, of calling a meteorite by the name 
of the county in which it fell or was found is especially to be deprecated. 
Counties in this country often cover an area of hundreds of square miles. 
In process of time more than one fall or find is likely to occur within one 
county, causing a duplication of names if the plan of naming a fall from 
the county is consistently followed. Another change likely to occur is a 
subdivision of one county into two or more, thus throwing the place of 
fall or find out of the county for which it was named. An instance of 
this is afforded by Auburn, which was originally described from Macon 
County, but is now in Lee County. Similarly, Ruff’s Mountain was for- 
merly in Lexington County, but is now in Newberry County. It is true that 
in some instances the information regarding a place or find is so indefi- 
nite that it can only be designated as within a county, but wherever pos- 
sible a more definite location should be determined, and the meteorite 
known by this name, even at the risk of disturbing established usage. 
That so many American meteorites have continued to be designated by 
the names of counties has probably been in part due to a lack of appre- 
ciation by foreign authorities of the amount of territory included in an 
American county. | 
The arrangement of names adopted in the accompanying catalogue 
is a purely alphabetical one, this being, according to the writer’s experi- 
ence, the most convenient for reference. In the classification of in- 
dividual meteorites, the systems of Tschermak and Brezina have been 
followed, with such modifications and new determinations as are due to 
Wilfing, Cohen, Berwerth, Merrill, and others. The German terms have 
been put in English form for this catalogue, but the group abbreviations 
have been retained as in the original. Some falls hitherto without classi- 
fication have been examined with a view to designation, and the following 
new determinations made: . 
Colfax, medium octahedrite, Om. 
Hopper (Henry County), medium octahedrite, Om. 
