Contents
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Preface
List of Plates

Part I. Introduction

Part II.
Museum collection, alphabetical list and descriptions; [ pick a letter to start at ]
A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P    Q    R    S    T    U    V    W    X    Y    Z   
list of casts

Shepard collection, alphabetical list and description.

Appendix A. Moldavites, Billitonites, and other glasses of supposed meteoric origin.

Appendix B. Examples or metallic iron, in part alloyed with nickel, in terrestrial rocks.

The scientific publications of the United States National Museum consist of two series, the Proceedings and the Bulletins. The Proceedings, the first volume of which was issued in 1878, are intended primarily as a medium for the publication of original, and usually brief, papers based on the collections of the National Museum, presenting newly acquired facts in zoology, geology, and anthropology, including descriptions of new forms of animals, and revisions of limited groups. One or two volumes are issued annually and distributed to libraries and scientific organizations. A limited number of copies of each paper, in pamphlet form, is distributed to specialists and others interested in the different subjects, as soon as printed. The date of publication is printed on each paper, and these dates are also recorded in the table of contents of the volumes. The Bulletins, the first of which was issued in 1875, consist of a series of separate publications comprising chiefly monographs of large zoological groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in several volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, and catalogues of type-specimens, special collections, etc. The majority of the volumes are octavos, but a quarto size has been adopted in a few instances in which large plates were regarded as indispensable.

Since 1902 a series of octavo volumes containing papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum, and known as the Contributions from the National Herbarium, has been published as bulletins. The present work forms No. 94 of the Bulletin series.

RICHARD RATHBUN,
Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution,
In charge of the United States National Museum.
WASHINGTON, D. C., March 29, 1916.

The handbook and catalogue presented herewith is intended primarily for the use of the general public, but the subject matter is at the same time so arranged as to meet the needs of the student and Investigator as well, though naturally an exhaustive discussion of some of the more abstruse problems is omitted. The descriptive matter is most complete regarding falls of which the collections contain what is considered a fair representation. Indeed, the exhibition portion of the collection is limited to specimens of upwards of 50 grams in weight, all under this weight being relegated to the drawer or study series. The entire collection numbers at the time this catalogue goes to press 329 falls and finds, and is accompanied by an equal number of thin sections for microscopic study.

The bibliography is intentionally brief, reference being made only to such publications as have furnished the information given in the abstract. Wulfing's Die Meteoriten in Sammlungen und ihre Literatur, 1897, is believed to make greater elaboration unnecessary.

Since the issue of the two previous catalogues, that by Dr. F. W. Clarke in 1889, and that by Mr. Wirt Tassin in 1902, the entire collection has been re-catalogued, independent of the mineral collection of which it had previously been considered a part, and is now treated as belonging more properly to petrology.

Inasmuch as the Shepard collection is given a case by itself, it has been thought advisable to list it here independently, as was done in Doctor Clarke's catalogue of 1889. That collection comprises 234 falls and finds, of which 83 are not represented in the National Museum collection proper. The combined collections, therefore, number 412 independent falls and finds.
JANUARY 1, 1916.