PREFACE.

The Ward-Coonley collection of meteorites has now so nearly reached its expected limit that the time seems favorable for some notice of its origin and growth, together with a statement of its present contents.

The writer of this notice, Mr. Henry A. Ward, had in the course of travel and business activity been largely interested in several branches of nature, among which were meteorites. He made two large collections of these objects, one of which-about 170 falls-formed the basis of the present meteorite collection of the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago. The other some 200 falls went to enrich the fine Clarence S. Bement cabinet of these objects. The present collection, which has outstripped them all, was commenced in 1894 with a basis of a few score of choice falls which had been retained from previous transactions. For six subsequent years, during which Mr. Ward collected actively by purchase and exchange at home and in extensive travel abroad, the collection was so increased that in 1900 its first catalogue was issued, with enumerations and a short description of each of its falls. A second list followed in the ensuing year. We now (May, 1901) follow with this third catalogue. The growth which is thus successively registered is shown in the following table:

The increase of growth of the collection in four years of 179 falls, or 45 falls per year, for a collection already numbering 424 falls, is, we believe, unprecedented in the history of meteorite collections.

It may be not improper to notice the especial opportunities which enabled the accomplishing of this undertaking. How has so great a collection been made? From the first a large outlay of money has been necessary. "If one would bring back the wealth of the Indies, one must take the wealth of the Indies with him," is very true in meteorite gathering, as in any other collecting of highly expensive objects. At least one-third of all known meteorites are rated when sold in small pieces-which these rarest always are- at from one to five or even more times their weight in gold. And very few meteorites except in quite large pieces are rated so low as their weight in silver. Thus much money expenditure has been essential. But the managers of those half-dozen meteorite collections in the world which have passed the 400 mark are aware that direct money purchase generally quite fails as a means to secure the rarities. These must be sought by exchange of equally rare or attractive kinds. The museum curator must then take portions (usually small) from his rare kinds to give in exchange for portions (usually alike small) of the rarity which he seeks. This matter of exchange becomes thus the base and vis viva of nearly all acquisitions of subsequent already known kinds. The way in which the maker of the Ward-Coonley collection has applied this force is simple in statement, yet not altogether easy in execution. He has sought in a combination of money with extensive travel to continually obtain each year some new kinds which no other collection possessed. These he sought in all the continents, wherever there was sure

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promise of obtaining them. Japan, Java, India, Australia, Persia, Siberia, South Africa, South and Central America have each responded to his quest, yielding him new and precious kinds with which to obtain from other museums meteorite rarities which no money would dislodge, and which were nowhere else obtainable. With some of these rarities always with him, he has visited every important meteorite collection in the world, most of them many times over in successive years. In all this the power of exchange as a force in building a meteorite collection has been carried to its extreme limit. There is a third and final power in such building which for a century past has powerfully aided the great European Museums. This is the fact that they have, in periods rarely separated by more than two decades, been the recipients, generally by posthumous gift or purchase, of some large and often celebrated meteorite cabinets. The British Museum, Paris, Tübingen, Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Dresden, Berlin, have all been several times thus endowed. These sources of growth have been recounted in each edition of their catalogues. The Ward-Coonley collection has enjoyed but three such wind-falls. One has been the sustaining of the Ward's Natural Science Establishment at Rochester, which has handled meteorites on a prodigious scale, and has during the last ten years joined its powerful efforts with those of the writer. In the second place, the collection of the late James R. Gregory of London. Mr. Gregory was a true lover of meteorites, and an ardent collector of them. His collection of 406 falls was at the time of his death the largest private meteorite collection in the world. This collection was three years ago put into my hands in its entirety, and I was enabled to add its richest treasures to the Ward-Coonley series.* Finally, I was last year enabled to purchase in St. Petersburg the entire collection of the late Excellenz Julien de Siemaschko. This collection of 402 falls was famous through the Continent of Europe for its comprehensiveness-particularly in the rare Russian and Siberian meteorites. The collection, which at the time of its owner's death (1896) was held at the price of 30,000 rubles, was last August purchased by me and added to my collection. In these ways, with conditions and antecedents particularly favorable, has the collection noted in this catalogue The Ward-Coonley Collection-been made.

The writer is aware that there is much which is personal in this notice of his own work. His apology must be if the value of the information given is not sufficient-that he has in this enumeration of contents and sources closely followed the plan of the catalogues of the large European collections. Only he has, unhappily, no list of donors to record.

In placing in the front line Exchanges as a means of building up a great museum, the writer would call attention to the easily confirmed and observable fact that those museums which have gone forward and have become great have pursued this course. Per contra, the museums of some important institutions-notably in Russia and in Spain-which refuse exchanges have remained stationary. The somewhat despairing remark of the curators of such museums has been, "I can do nothing, not even to exchange a single gramme, without first submitting it to the consideration of the Museum Administration. They meet a few weeks or months hence." Growth of the museum is thus fatally atrophied, and the curator is left to study out the secret of why he, knowing all about the conditions of his subjects, should be tied up by a Board who have not that intimate knowledge, and whose action is thus largely perfunctory when not absolutely obstructive. There should be a wider and more liberal distribution of meteorites; both for the sake of science and the more material personal aim of *Portions of this great Gregory collection may still be obtained from his son, Mr. Victor H. Gregory, 2 Burlington Gardens, Chiswick, W. London, England.

increasing each collection thereby. The present collection and that of the Royal Vienna Museum are eminent instances of what may be done in this way. It is pleasant to the writer to recall how, in the building up of the Ward-Coonley collection, several hundred other meteorite collections, public and private, have been at the same time built up. Wülfing (Die Meteoriten in Sammlungen) notices the fact that over seven-tenths of all known meteorites are in the hands of half a dozen great museums. But if it be hard to-day to get specimens from them, it is because they are seeking only new falls. As to the propriety of dividing a large meteorite, there will be different decisions according to the individual specimen under consideration. An aerolite, highly orientated and coated all around with a continuous crust, may well be held exempt from division-further than the few grammes essential for analysis and revealing of its inner structure. But such pieces are the great exception. In more than nine-tenths of the cases the stone has broken in the air or on its fall, and not only is not an integer or entire boloid, but is a fractional mass from which other fractions may be taken with absolutely no damage to its scientific value. In this matter the four large (Royal) museums of Europe appear quite in accord. It may not be amiss to repeat here what Wülfing (loc. cit.) has said upon the subject:

"Most Meteorites, especially the Irons, would attain a far greater use in a scientific way by being cut into. There are in many collections great masses of iron which have lain there for long decades of years, covered with the same coating of rust which they had when they were first found, and by reason of which their interesting structure can but slightly be recognized. This opinion has been expressed by many meteorite authorities. Partsch (in Vienna Royal Mineral Cabinet, 1843) says: 'Meteorite masses first receive their true scientific interest through attacking and etching.'

"Buchner says (Pogg. Am., Vol. 116, 1862, p. 642): 'Men may wonder at a lump of meteorite iron on account of its size and weight, but so long as it has not a cut and polished section it hardly exists as an object of study. With preparation, its intrinsic value also increases.'

"Finally, Gustav Rose, as he studied the Berlin collection (Abh. Berlin Acad., 1863) announced: 'I have caused the whole series of stone and of iron meteorites to be cut, and the latter (the irons) to be etched, because only thus can there be obtained an insight to the composition of the first and the structure of the latter.'"-(Wülfing, Die Meteoriten, etc., University of Tübingen, 1897, pp. xx and xxi.)*

Dr. Brezina, who by exchanges even more than by purchases built up in a masterful manner the Royal Vienna Museum during his Directorship of twenty years, tells us (Catalogue of 1895, p. 236) that of 78 meteorites which he had in a given period of time received, he had "unlocked (rendered available to science) 55 of them by cutting them, mostly with many sections, by which means I have obtained a large series of duplicates for other collections (exchanges), also entire series of pieces representing the locality." On the same page Dr. Brezina reports the acquisition of the Eagle Station Pallasite "The most beautiful of all meteorites, weighing 36 kilogrammes, of which we have cut up in slices 16 kilogrammes.” The increase of a meteorite collection beyond about 400 kinds is at the present day so difficult as to be almost impossible. Purchasable kinds have at that mark been almost

*The writer takes this occasion to express at once his admiration of and his indebtedness to this most comprehensive and useful work. Its list of all meteorites known (in 1897) to science, the indications of where these falls have been scientifically described and where they are now mainly distributed, are invaluable. I say without hesitation and with true pleasure that without the eminent aid of Wülfing's book the Ward-Coonley collection would still be on the stocks.

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wholly used up; and exchanges are impracticable with the largest collections, because in most cases the would-be exchanger has nothing new to offer them. Furthermore, the supply of possible material has given out, having found its final resting-place in the great museums, where it cannot be dislodged. Of many meteorites it is known where all is; of the others the part which has disappeared from view is apparently unlikely to be again found. Only the obtaining of new falls, and all of the fall, to-day gives material of value for adding any part of the final third to the structure of a world-collection. These are but four-the Vienna collection, the Paris ditto, that of the British Museum and the Ward-Coonley collection. The number of falls of the two latter are known-the British museum (Cat. of March, 1904) 577 falls, and the Ward-Coonley 603 falls. Vienna announced 560 falls in its last Catalogue, October, 1902, while the last Paris catalogue of 1898 announced 466 kinds. It would seem that these four will hold the lead as world-collections for the next one or two decades.

Each has its own factor of value in which it excels. But it probably could easily be shown that the meteorite collection of the Royal Vienna Museum leads all the other three. Professor Klein, the savant Director of the large (450 kinds) Royal Berlin Meteorite Cabinet, after telling us (Cat. of 1903) that "this extraordinary increase of our large collection is due to the disposal of large sums received from the general Government," still freely admits (Cat. of 1904) that "in Vienna is now displayed the largest of meteorite collections. And it will be hardly possible that any other collection will ever attain to it in educational force, beauty and size of the pieces." This collection is now under the directorship of Prof. Friedrich Berwerth, who is enthusiastically increasing its size and excellence. For the present time and until either Vienna or Paris museums issue new catalogues largely in advance of their present ones, the Ward-Coonley collection will bear the palm as to number of falls. As to its further factors of value, we will not speak in this place further than to mention the minor point that we have paid unusual attention to the display of the specimens. The collection is in seven beautiful cases of solid mahogany and plate glass, six of these uniform (12 feet by 4 feet by 7 feet) with the one depicted in the frontispiece, and one, one-third shorter, as shown at the end of this catalogue. The individual specimens, some 1600 in number, are mounted on handsome mahogany pedestals with carved stems, and labels are hand-printed on celluloid plate.

This collection is at present "on deposit" in the Geological Hall on the fourth floor of the American Museum of Natural History, 77th Street and Central Park, West, New York City. Its ultimate destination is undetermined.

Mr. Ward takes this occasion to express his eminent indebtedness to his assistant, Mr. Harry L. Preston, of Rochester, N Y., who for more than ten years past has done all the mechanical worknotably the cutting, polishing, and etching, of the many thousand specimens involved in making this collection, also the mounting, labelling and listing.

INTRODUCTION

In accordance with established custom, we call attention in this introduction to features of the contents of the Ward-Coonley Collection. As may be seen on page 105, the geographic sources of the collection are world-wide. Australasia and Asia, Africa and South America are represented each by 95% of all their known meteorites, while North America and Europe bring up the train with 99% of the former and 97% of the latter. No collection in the world can say of itself more than this. Attention is particularly drawn to the series from Japan, Australia, Russia and Mexico. It is only within the last decade that the rare and interesting meteorites from these countries have been largely distributed. To-day it is true that in no collection in any one of these four countries are there so many kinds from that country as are represented in this collection. In Japan we have received powerful aid in exchanges with the Imperial Museum of Uyeno, Tokio; in Australia, from the Australian Museum of Sydney, Prof. Edward F. Pittman, the Director of the Geological Survey, Dr. E. H. Sterling of Adelaide, South Australia, and Bernhard H. Woodward of the Perth (West Australia) Museum. In Russia we were given eminent position through the purchase of the Siemaschko Collection. While in Mexico during half a dozen visits we were much aided by Prof. Manuel Villada of the Museo Nacional, and of Prof. Jose C. Aguilera, the Director of the Instituto Geologico and of the Geological Survey. From Prof. W. L. Sclater of the Capetown (South Africa) Museum, and from the Director of the Geological Survey of India, we have had signal aid. It is interesting to note that while in the large series which we have received (by visit and by exchange) from the latter country and from Japan, we have received only two irons-the others being stones-we have in Australia and in Mexico received but two stones each, the others being irons. Much effort has been given in this Catalogue to giving the localities and geographical situation correctly. Our formula of latitude and longitude is based upon that first used by Brezina in the 1885 Catalogue of the Vienna Museum. His determinations for European localities have been largely accepted, while those for other countries notably for the Western Hemisphere have been wholly recast or, in the case of later falls, have been estimated for the first time. In recording the American specimens we have ever sought (and have often succeeded) to bring the simple "county" indications down to the exact locality. In some cases this has been the more essential because the name of the county itself has been changed since the meteorite fell; and a meteorite which fell in Macon County may now be Lee County, etc. In other cases the fall may have been so widespread that the county name may better be given. In still other cases we have given a principal point of fall, and have added the words "and vicinity."

Closely allied to the question of locality is the question of meteorite names. There has not as yet been announced—as in Botany and Zoology—a code of nomenclature for meteorites. (It is to be hoped that this will soon be done, before further confusion arises.) The most common and most generally accepted rule for meteorite naming is to give the meteorite the name of the nearest place-town or village. Where this rule is adhered to, the place of fall or find is easily located without looking up the literature of the fall. It is unfortunate that in the first half of the last century, when our geography was less known and the country less