ON METEORITES, OR CELESTIAL STONES 101
monds
from the Canon Diablo meteorite was made by Dr. A. E. Foote, and not
long after Professor Koenig's determination of their character, the
present writer suggested an experiment that would afford absolute proof
that the material was really diamond. This was to charge a new skaif,
or diamond-polishing wheel, with the supposed dia-mond dust obtained
from the meteorite; should the material polish a diamond there could be
no doubt as to its character. On September 11, 1893, this experiment
was tried at the Mining Building of the World's Columbian Exposition.
After the skaif had been charged with the residuum separated from the
meteorite by Dr. O. W. Huntington, it was given a speed of 2500
revolutions to the minute, and in less than fifteen minutes a small
flat surface had been ground down and polished on a cleavage-piece of
rough diamond held against the wheel. The experiment was then repeated
several times on other diamonds and always successfully. This showed
conclusively that the residuum of the meteorite contained many minute
diamond fragments.62
A
most important group of meteorites were found in 1886 in Brenham
township, Kiowa County, Kansas, by some of the farmers of this district
in the course of their farming operations.83 Entirely
unaware of their scientific value, the finders used these objects to
weight down haystacks', or for similar uses to which they would put
small boulders. In all some twenty of these specimens have been
recovered, varying in weight all the way from 466 pounds down to a
single ounce. Most of them were taken from an area of about sixty
acres, although some were scattered over a wider tract. The largest
piece of the group, that on which the
eG.
F. Kunz and O. W. Huntington, "On the Diamond in the Cation Diablo
Meteoric Iron and on the Hardness of Carborundum," American Journal of
Science, vol. xlvi, December, 1893.
" George F. Kunz, " On Five American Meteorites," American Journal of Science, vol. xl, Oct., 1890, pp. 312-323.
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