Catalogue of the Meteorite of North AmericaShow simple item record
| dc.creator | National Academy of Sciences | |
| dc.creator | Farrington, Oliver C. (Oliver Cummings), 1864-1933 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-02-12T18:10:14Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-02-12T18:10:14Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1909-01-01 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://repository.tcu.edu/handle/116099117/63082 | |
| dc.description | Catalogue entries with detailed information for the Bluff meteorite (pages 74-76) and Mart meteorite (pages 297-298). | |
| dc.relation | Oscar Monnig Papers (MS 124) | |
| dc.rights | Prior written permission from TCU Special Collections required to use any document or photograph. | |
| dc.source | Series III, Box 06, Fayette Co., Texas literature folder | |
| dc.subject | Meteorite | |
| dc.subject | Fayette County meteorite | |
| dc.subject | Fayette County (Tex.) | |
| dc.subject | Arizona State University. Center for Meteorite Studies | |
| dc.subject | Bluff meteorites | |
| dc.subject | Mart meteorite | |
| dc.subject | Metallography | |
| dc.subject | Charlton, O. C. | |
| dc.title | Catalogue of the Meteorite of North America | |
| dc.type | Document | |
| dc.description.transcription | NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Volume XIII. CATALOGUE OF THE METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA, TO JANUARY 1, 1909. BY OLIVER CUMMINGS FARRINGTON. Colonel Nicholson for information respecting that portion of his effects, which would likely be to include this specimen but my inquiries were without success. Previous to this date, however, I had been informed by Professor Tuomey, who was then the State geologist, that he had seen a specimen of malleable iron in the cabinet of Doctor Barratt, of Abbeville, which led me to address a letter to this gentleman relative to the subject, from whom I received the following note, dated June 1, 1846, accompanied by the specimen itself: "I can furnish you with little that is definite concerning its history. The year Colonel Nicholson, of Charleston, died, he had obtained it in Pendleton or Greenville district. It was given to him by some person, who had picked it up as a meteorite. Colonel Nicholson gave it to me, aa I wAs then the only person in this part of the country who preserved such objects. I believe it to be meteoric in its origin, and as such it has had a place in my cabinet. To yourself and to science it is most cheerfully tendered." On communicating a description of the mass to Doctor Hardy, he replied, "I have no doubt that the specimen referred to is the same which I gave Colonel Nicholson. It was found at the head of Swanannoah River, near the base of Black Mountain, towards the eastern side of Buncombe County." The fragment weighs only 21 ounces; and, judging from the size and shape of that which still exhibits the natural outside of the meteor, it is evidently a portion of a mass that must have been much larger. The texture is throughout highly crystalline, having all of the lamina (which are unusually thick) arranged conformably to the octahedral faces of a single individual. These layers, which commonly have a thickness of one-tenth of an inch, adhere to one another with much tenacity, so as not to be separable by any ordinary force. They manifest a slight tendency, however, as a result of weathering, to separate into granular portions of the thickness of the layers themselves; the particles being somewhat oval in form- a result which seems to flow from the existence of very minute veins of magnetic iron pyrites; for when a surface of the iron is polished it exhibits the appearance of being mapped off into rounded patches by thin veins of the pyrites, and on the application of nitric acid this structure is farther developed by the corrosion of the veins. Within these areas, the structure of the iron, when etched, scarcely seems crystalline; at most, exhibiting a few faintly marked crossing lines. A somewhat similar structure is visible in the Cocke County iron. The mass contains several rounded and irregular nodules of plumbaginous matter (from 0.5 to 1 inch in diameter), with which again (and often situated in the midst of the kernels) are found large pieces of foliated, magnetic iron pyrites. In this respect also the present iron is closely related to the Cocke County iron. It specific gravity is 7.261. It consists of- Nickel (with traces of cobalt) 2.52 Iron 96.04 Insoluble matter, sulphur and loss 1.44 100.00 Brezina gives the breadth of the lamellae as 1.8 to 2.0 mm., and states that the bands are irregular. The meteorite is distributed about equally among a number of collections. Amherst has 343 grams, which, added to 384 grams listed by Wulfing, gives more than 596 grams, the amount which Shepard stated that he originally acquired. Blount County. See Summit. BLUFF. Fayette County, Texas Here also Fayette County and Lagrange, 1878. Latitude 29° 55/ N., longitude 96° 50° W. Stone. Brecciated crystalline chondrite (Ckb) of Brezina. Found about 1878; described 1888. Weight, 146 kgs. (320 Ibs.). This meteorite is described by Whitfield and Merrill' as follows: Found about 1878 at Bluff, a settlement on the Colorado River about 3 miles southwest of the town of La Grange, in Fayette County, Texas. The finder, a Bohemian named Raniosek, was struck by the appearance and especially the weight of the stone, and * * * came to the conclusion that it was something foreign to the soil. He dug a hole under where it had lain in hope of finding the buried war treasures of the Mexican General Santa Anna, which were supposed by the inhabitants of that region to have been buried there by the general after his defeat at the battle of San Jacinto. For several years the stone remained where the Bohemian had left it until he sold the land, when he removed it to his own farm, believing that it might be valuable metal. Mr. H. Hensoldt, a teacher near the place, found it here and disposed of it to Ward and Howell. The stone showed well-marked pittings but the crust appeared only in the deeper depressions; the freshly fractured surface shows, besides the grains of metal, a greenish-gray appearance not unlike some greenstones. A particularly interesting feature of the mass was the presence of a few dark-colored veins varying greatly in dimensions. The stone measured 58 by 46 by 28 cm., and its total weight was about 146 kg. It had a roughly rounded shape. Specific gravity, 3.510. Analysis by Whitfield: SiO2 37.70 Fe 3.47FeO 23.82 Al2O3 2.17 P2O5 0.25 CaO 2.20 MnO 0.45 MgO 25.94 NiO 1.59 Ni 0.65 CoO 0.16 Co 0.09 S 1.30 Less O for S 99.79 0.65 99.14 99.14 The stony portion is described by Merrill as consisting of olivine and enstatite, with considerable pyrrhotite. It has a chondritic structure which to the unaided eye is not distinctly marked, a fractured surface showing a fine-grained and evidently a crystalline-granular rock, very compact, of a greenish gray color and thickly studded with small metallic points with a brassy luster. A polished surface shows the stone to be composed of small chondri rarely over 2 mm. in diameter, thickly and firmly compacted in a fine granular groundmass. Throughout the entire mass are thickly distributed innumerable small irregular flecks of a steel-gray, brassy, and bronze-yellow color, presumably native iron and pyrrhotite. Thin sections show a confused aggregate of rounded and irregular, often fragmental olivine and enstatite grains and chondri embedded in a fine granular groundmass of the same mineral composition. The chondri occur in monosomatic and polysomatic forms composed either of olivine or enstatite alone or the two associated. Both are nearly colorless or gray on account of the inclosure of dust-like particles, and carry but few cavities. Some augite or a closely allied pyroxene and traces of plagioclase occur. The metallic iron occurs in the usual rounded and irregular masses 1 to 2 mm. in diameter and in apparently equal proportions with the pyrrhotite, which has a bright brassy luster in strong contrast with the silvery white iron. Newton noted that the metallic grains showed a tendency to an arrangement in lines resembling Widmannstätten figures. Meunier 3 classified the meteorite as erxlebenite and calculated its composition as follows: Nickel-iron 7.21 Pyrrhotite 2.84 Olivine 38.01 Pyroxenes (enstatite, etc.) 45.23 Feldspathic minerals, vitreous interstitial substances, products of alteration 6.19 Chromic iron, schreibersite traces 99.44 Specific gravity, 3.50 to 3.75; mean, 3.547. The relative disposition of the constituent minerals, interpreted in the light of synthetic experiments, is as follows, in the order of their concretion: First time.-Pyroxenes and enstatite; feldspathic minerals. Second time. -Peridotic powder filling the cavities left by the needles (aiguilles) of the preceding minerals. Third time. -Very abundant vitreous magma, due to a later fusion of the primitive deposit. Fourth time.-Nickel iron and pyrrhotine, cast upon the surface of the chondrites and injected into their fissures. Fifth time.-Black minerals, arranged in very fine lines, arising from local reheating, without fusion and generally in consequence of mechanical action. A similar complication, which is found still more prominent in many other types of cosmic rocks, furnishes a very strong argument. Brezina describes the meteorite as follows: Bluff is not very distinctly crystalline, but stands between Ckb and Cgb, approximating more nearly to the first. The special peculiarity is the yellowish-brown to orange-red weathered crust, elsewhere found in olivine-gabbro, which in this meteorite attains a thickness of 2 to 3 mm. A large section of the stone, through the entire mass, measuring 53 by 30 cm., frequently shows a blackish infiltration from the crust in a dark green groundmass, to the depth of 2 or 3 mm., which penétrates the entire stone diagonally and obliquely, and from which blackish, sack-like apophyses, 2 to 4 cm. in width, branch out into the groundmass. The color of the fresh broken surface varies from greenish-gray, through light gray, to pistachio-green and greenish-brown. Grains of iron up to 1 cm. in size are frequently present, sometimes consisting of a grain enclosed in troilite, sometimes of loose, closely packed, roundish grains. The black veins previously referred to were described in detail by Howell? He says: The black veins observed at several points on the surface are found to extend entirely through the mass and are arranged mainly in two sets, in each of which the veins are approximately parallel, the two sets crossing each other at an angle of about 45°. The systematic arrangement of the veins, which may be only accidental, is shown in a cross section through the center. As the planes of the veins are cut at nearly right angles by the sections, they show on each of them in approximately the same positions. This is particularly the case with the narrow vein shown at the base of the section. Although only a mere line, it is uniform throughout, and is seen in exactly the same position on all of the sections; therefore we have already revealed the plane of this vein, 15 by 4 inches, with no indications of petering out. The irregular thick vein also maintains a nearly uniform appearance throughout the 4 inches of thickness. The sections also reveal a number of fissures or cracks formed subsequent to veins, and doubtless at the time of the fall. A dark clouding for the most part surrounds these fissures, the darkest parts being farthest from the fissure and terminated in some cases by a dark line similar to the veins. As not all of the fissures are surrounded by this dark shading, and as some of the clouded spots contain no fissures, it argues that the coloration can not be the effect of decomposition induced by the cracks, particularly as there is no apparent effect of decomposition extending in from the surface of the stone. The clouding is perhaps older than the cracks, and formed lines of weakness which the cracks followed. Whitfield and Merrill also described a black vein as traversing the section which they examined. They stated that it had the form of an irregular fissure extending 60 mm. and varying in width from a mere line to 2 mm. The vein material was more compact and darker in color than the main mass of the meteorite, but proved on analysis to differ but little in composition except in the absence of lime. The analysis gave the following: SiO2 38.96 Fe 2.39 FeO 22.98 Al2O3 1.89 MgO 27.52 Ni and Co 3.26 S 0.26 97.29 Specific gravity, 3.585. The meteorite is distributed among collections. Brezina described the structure as follows: Finely granular; kamacite somewhat puffy; polyhedral troilite grains or plates in the kamacite. Breadth of bands, 0.8 mm. Meunier gave the following description: Has the structure and composition of the caillite type, but with less geometrical regularity in the etching figures. At certain points the taenite lamina are very close together, elsewhere they are relatively distant; the kamacite bands are quite large and plessite is remarkably scarce. Cohen noted that the iron took on a more or less permanent magnetism. The meteorite is distributed, Amherst having the largest mass (6 pounds). Marshall County, 1893. See Plymouth. MART. McLennan County, Texas. Latitude 31° 31/ N., longitude 96° 45° W. Iron. Fine octahedrite (Of) of Brezina. Found 1898. Weight, 7,144 grams (15.75 pounds). This meteorite was described by Merrill, as follows: The second meteorite to be described, which will be known as the Mart Iron, was found early in 1898, on the farm of H. T. Vaughan, near Mart, in McLennan County, Texas. This iron weighed originally 15.75 pounds. From it a slice weighing 456 grams was cut for the collection of the National Museum, the iron having been donated by the finder to the museum of Baylor University, at Waco, Texas. For the privilege of removing this slice we are indebted to Mr. O. C. Charlton, curator of the museum. The original shape of the iron was that of an irregular oval, somewhat flattened at one side and rounded above, with two large and deep pittings on the broader surface. The original dimensions were about 8.5 X 15 X 25.5 cm. It was not seen to fall and had evidently lain in the soil some time, as the exterior was considerably oxidized and the troilite, which presumably once occupied the pita, was completely eliminated. Small dark points on the etched surface are due to troilite. Sundry cracks in the iron at various points on the etched surface are also filled with troilite which frequently oxidizes in process of etching. Mr. Tasein, by whom the etching was done, calls attention to the perfection of the Widmannstätten figures, and particularly to the relief of the taenite bands. As shown by this etching, the iron belongs to the octahedral variety, and is of moderately coarse crystallization. Its general appearance is so similar to that of the Hamilton County (Texas) iron described by Howell as to suggest that it may be a part of the same fall. The probability is still more evident when it is considered that the two localities are not over 50 miles apart in a straight line. The chemical evidence, as shown by a comparison of Mr. Eakins's analysis of the Hamilton iron with that of Doctor Stokes, is, however, not favorable to this view, though we believe the possible (if not probable) variation in composition in different parts of the same iron has not yet been fully worked out. Fe Mart. 89.68 Hamilton Co. 86.54 Ni Mart. 9.20 Hamilton Co. 12.77 Co Mart. 0.33 Hamilton Co. 0.63 Cu Mart. 0.037 Hamilton Co. 0.02 P Mart. 0.158 Hamilton Co. 0.16 S Mart. 0.017 Hamilton Co. 0.03 C Mart. Hamilton Co. 0.11 Chromite Mart. Trace Fe2O3 Mart. Trace 99.422 100.26 The samples submitted were cut from the outer portion of the meteorite, including the oxidized crust; this was carefully removed by scraping and filing. There was a small quantity of rust in the cracks on the cut surface, but its amount was trivial. During the solution in aqua regia scales of schreibersite were observed. A few small black grains were left which showed crystal faces under the microscope, and which were identified as chromite by the usual reaction. A minute amount of colorless granular matter was also noted, the nature of which could not be determined. All determinations were made in a solution of the same portion of 3.8536 grams, the residue having been brought into solution and added. The analysis gave: […] From the above data the composition of the iron may be expressed as follows: Nickel=iron (Fe, Ni, Cu, Co) 98.31 Schreibersite 1.06 Troilite 0.05 Chromite trace Fe2O3 trade 99.42 The mass is chiefly preserved in Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Maverick County. See Fort Duncan. MAZAPIL. Zacatecas, Mexico. Latitude 24° 31/ N., longitude 101° 59 W. Iron. Medium octahedrite (Om) of Brezina. Fell 9 p. m. November 27, 1885; described 1887. Weight, 3,950 grams (9 lbs.). The first description of this meteorite seems to have been by Hidden, as follows: Among the large number of meteoric irons which have been described only eight are recorded as having been seen to fall. It is my privilege to be able to add a ninth fall to this short list and one which may prove to be of exceptional scientific importance. This mass of meteoric iron I received in August last as a gift from my friend, Prof. Jose A. y Bonilla, director of the Astronomical Observatory at Zacatecas, Mexico. He stated that it was seen to fall at about 9 p. m. on November 27, 1885, during the periodical star shower of the "Bielids." Such is the great interest of this meteorite as shown by its history that I have delayed announcing it until the evidence of its fall had been substantiated as thoroughly as possible. The general freshness of surface, which shows very perfectly the flow of the melted crust; the presence of unusually large nodules of a very compact graphite; the very slight superficial oxidation, and its dissimilarity to other meteorites of the region, are all interesting features of this iron, and serve to confirm the statement of its recent fall. When received It weighed about 3,950 grams. Its present weight is 3,864 grams. Its greatest length, diagonally across the mass, is 175 mm. In its thickest part it measures about 60 mm. It could be described as a flat irregular mass covered with deep depressions and having a smooth surface. The evidence of the fall is set forth in the following communication (translated) from Professor Bonilla: "It is with great pleasure that I send to you the uranolite which fell near Mazapil during the night of November 27, 1885. That you may the better appreciate the great scientific interest which this uranolite possesses I will state that everything points to the belief that it belongs to a fragment of the comet of Biela-Gambert, lost since 1852. I |
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Records of the Monnig Meteorite Gallery [2825]
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