[From the American Journal of Science, Vol. XXVIII, October, 1884.] 
Art. XXXVI.- On a mass of Meteoric Iron from Wichita 
County, Texas; by J. W. Mallet, f .' " 
The following is the history of the Wichita County meteoric 
mass, as given me by Hon. Henry P. Brewster, Commissioner 
of Insurance, Statistics and History of the State of Texas, a 
gentleman whose personal knowledge of the State in its early 
days is extensive and accurate. 
The meteorite was found on the upper waters of Red River, 
in what is now the county of Wichita, not far from the Red River 286 
J. IK. Mallet-Meteoric Iron from Texas. 
itself, on the opposite side of that stream from the part of the 
Indian Territory at present set apart for the Kiowas, Coman- 
ches and Apaches. It had been set up as a kind of " fetich " 
or object of worship or veneration by the Indians, " who re- 
vered it as foreign to the earth and coming from the Great 
Spirit," at a point where several converging trails indicated 
periodical visits to the spot. In 1858 or '59 Maj. Neighbors, 
then commanding at Fort Belknap, sent a wagon after the mass, 
and had it brought into the fort. It was thence sent in a gov- 
ernment wagon to San Antonio, and subsequently moved to 
Austin, and there deposited in the old Capitol building, where it 
remained until the destruction of the building by fire some three 
yearsago. Removed from the ruins, it was placed in a passage 
on the ground floor of the temporary Capitol now in use while 
the new and very handsome structure, intended for the perma- 
nent seat of the State government, is being erected. During 
last winter the meteorite was turned over by the State au- 
thorities to the University of Texas, and is now preserved in 
the University building at Austin. 
The mass has an irregular, elongated pear-like shape, some- 
what flattened, a good deal larger at one end than the other, with 
tolerably smooth general surface, but with well marked con- 
cavities or shallow pittings-in every way presenting the appear- 
ance of a typical metallic meteorite. There is no well-defined 
crust, but merely a thin, closely adhering film of oxide on 
the surface. There is no appearance of any effect from the Capi- 
tol fire through which it passed ; very probably the weight of 
the mass may have carried it rapidly, on the giving way of 
the floor, down to some position in the basement in which it 
was sheltered from the heat by masonry rubbish accumulated, 
over it. The dimensions of the specimen in its original state 
were- 
Maximum length 595 millimeters. 
Maximum breadth 305 " 
Maximum thickness 223 " 
The weight was a little under 160 kilograms, as determined 
on a rather rough platform balance. 
A piece was cut off one end in order to display the character 
of the interior. Most of the iron was compact, and tolerably 
soft, tough and malleable. Here and there occurred nodules 
of troilite of considerable size, the principal ones ranging from 
5 or 6 up to 23 millimeters in diameter. Signs of the presence 
of thin plates of schreibersite could, be seen even without 
the use of acid, but that ingredient is not very abundant. 
The average specific gravity of the whole mass was probably 
pretty fairly represented by that of a slice weighing 204 grams, 
which was found =7'841 at 24° C. J. W. Mallet-Meteoric Iron from Texas. 
287 
A polished surface having been etched with nitric acid, 
Widmannstattian figures were clearly brought out, the broad 
bands of crystalline nickel-iron (with finer subordinate mark- 
ings upon them) contrasting strongly with the more sparingly 
occurring, well-defined, lustrous lines of schreibersite. 
Chemical analysis of an average sample of the shavings 
taken off by a planing machine in cutting through the mass 
gave : 
Iron 90'769 
Nickel 8'342 
Cobalt '265 
Manganese trace 
Copper '018 
Tin '004 
Phosphorus '141 ) * 
Sulphur '016 ( 
Graphitic carbon ... '190 
Silica 
Magnetic oxide iron ... 
•132f 
99'877 
A separate examination of the troilite nodules proved them 
to consist of ferrous sulphide with a little nickel and traces of 
manganese and chromium. The nickel may very possibly 
have existed in the form of minute granules of nickel-iron or 
schreibersite, and the chromium may in like manner be referred 
to an admixture of little particles of daubreelite. 
The most interesting point about this specimen is perhaps 
the probability of its forming a separate portion of the same 
meteoric fall from which was derived the large iron meteorite, 
weighing 1635 lbs., first described by Col. Gibbs in 1814, and 
which has long been a prominent object in the mineralogical 
collection of Yale College at New Haven, Connecticut. The 
latter is said to have been found " near the head of Trinity 
River, a few miles west of the Cross Timbers, Texas, lat. 32°7', 
long. 95° 10' west of London." It is said to have been "one of 
a large number of meteoric masses which are reported to exist 
at the locality mentioned above." The statement of locality is 
not quite clear : the spot designated by latitude and longitude is 
in the northern part of the present Cherokee County, near the 
line of Smith County, and rather on the head waters of the 
Neches than of the Trinity, though not far from the latter, and 
about 240 miles from the locality in Wichita County where the 
meteorite now described was found. Even such a distance 
* Both of course variable with the distribution of schreibersite and troilite. 
f Silica perhaps originally present as iron silicide-magnetic oxide iron doubt- 
less from outside surface. 288 
J. IF. Mallet-Meteoric Iron from Texas. 
perhaps does not altogether exclude the idea of simultaneous 
fall, and it is of course quite possible that the mass found to be 
regarded with attention and veneration by the Indians may have 
been by them carried to the spot where they afterwards pre- 
served it. There seems to be some uncertainty as to how 
many meteoric irons from Texas have before now been noticed, 
and are to be found in the mineralogical collections of the 
world. In a catalogue of the collection of Professor C. U. 
Shepard, published in 1857, in the second part of his treatise 
on mineralogy, p. 436, there is mentioned a meteoric iron from 
"Texas (Red River), U. S. A., found in 1808." In Bammels- 
berg's Ilandbuch der Miner alchemie (Leipzig, 1860) are noticed, 
p. 917, specimens from "Red River in Louisiana," and from 
"Texas," with the statement that according to Partsch these 
are probably identical; this opinion is undoubtedly correct; 
the analyses quoted show that both represent the Yale College 
specimen. In the recent (1880) catalogue of meteorites in the. 
collection of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, No. 108 is quoted 
on p. 38, as two specimens frojn "Red River, Texas, U. S. A., 
found in 1814," No. 27, on p. 31, as a specimen which "appar- 
ently has been fired, from Denton County, Texas, U. S. A., 
found in 1856," and No. 39, on p. 32, as from " Brazos River, 
Texas, U. S. A., found in 1856." It may be questioned 
whether Nos. 27 and 39 refer to portions of the same or of differ- 
ent masses ; the same date is given, but the shortest distance 
from any part of Denton county to the Brazos is about 40 miles, 
this county being traversed by affluents of the Trinity. The 
specific gravity of the iron now described agrees closely with 
that reported for the Gibbs meteorite of the Yale College 
collection. The results of the chemical analysis are also very 
similar to those obtained for the latter by B. Silliman, Jr. and 
Hunt. It is stated that this latter " encloses a few small masses 
of magnetic pyrites;" this statement probably referring to troi- 
lite nodules like those which are conspicuous enclosures in the 
University of Texas specimen. The Widmannstattian figures 
developed by etching this University of Texas iron do not closely 
resemble those of the Yale College specimen, as shown in a 
lithographed figure published in connection with the (Gottin- 
gen) inaugural dissertation on metallic meteorites of Wm. S. 
Clark (1852), copied from one published by Professor B. Silli- 
man, Jr., but the difference of appearance may be largely due 
to difference in the planes of section in relation to those of crys- 
tallization in the particular pieces submitted to the etching 
process. 
University of Virginia, August 11, 1884.