FRONTISPIECE.—The two major remaining pieces of the Port Orford, Oregon, meteorite specimen. The Vienna

specimen (#A662, 3.47 g) is at the left of the specimen at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,

D.C. (USNM#617, 17.7 g, 28 mm high). Blue-black fusion crust covers much of the Vienna specimen and is

present in small patches particularly at the top of the larger specimen. Light yellow olivine may be seen in both

specimens. Photograph by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution.
SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES • NUMBER 31

The Port Orford, Oregon, Meteorite Mystery

Roy S. Clarke, Jr.

EDITOR

ISSUED

JAN 0 4 1993

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

Washington, D.C.

1993
ABSTRAC T

Clarke, Roy S., Jr., editor. The Port Orford, Oregon, Meteorite Mystery. Smithsonian

Contributions to the Earth Sciences, number 31, 43 pages, Frontispiece, 19 figures, 7 tables,

1993.—The Port Orford meteorite was allegedly discovered by John Evans, a contract explorer

for the United States Government, on a mountain in southwestern Oregon in 1856. Efforts to

organize the recovery of the alleged 10-ton body for placement in the Smithsonian Institution in

Washington, D.C., began in late 1859, but were abandoned as a consequence of the simultaneous

onset of the Civil War and Evans' death.

Early in this century journalistic reports revived the story and stimulated numerous

unsuccessful amateur meteorite hunting expeditions into the inaccessible Siskiyou National

Forest. Smithsonian investigators visited the vaguely defined site without success in 1929 and

1939. As time passed, it became increasingly obvious to some involved officials that there was

something wrong with the original accounts. Nevertheless, most persons persisted in their belief

that Evans' story was true.

This monograph combines an historical study by Howard Plotkin ("John Evans and the Port

Orford Meteorite Hoax," pages 1-24), and a technical study by V.F. Buchwald and Roy S.

Clarke, Jr. ("A Mystery Solved: The Port Orford Meteorite is an Imilac Specimen," pages

25-43).

In the first paper, Plotkin details the history of the mysterious lost Port Orford meteorite, and

presents previously unreported evidence that indicates Evans was ill-trained for his scientific

field work, which was superfically and unprofessionally executed, and that he had amassed a

staggering personal debt by consistently overspending his budget. Most startling of all, Plotkin's

research led him to the inescapable conclusion that Evans had acquired a small but very rare

piece of meteorite, and had hatched a clever scheme whereby he could use it to turn around his

financial affairs. Plotkin reconstructs in detail how Evans planned to carry out this hoax.

Finally, Plotkin endeavors to establish the true identity of the meteoritic sample. On the basis

of its overall physical appearance, degree of weathering, and chemical composition, Plotkin

argues that the Port Orford specimen is a fragment of Imilac, a Chilean pallasite discovered in

1820-1822. He further contends that Evans acquired it from someone else while crossing the

Isthmus of Panama on his final return trip from Oregon during the fall of 1858.

In the second paper, Buchwald and Clarke describe the involvement of the National Museum

of Natural History in attempts during this century to recover the meteorite, and they report on

their detailed technical studies of the Port Orford specimen and other possibly related meteorites.

Buchwald and Clarke point out that only three distinct pallasite falls were known in the late

1850s: (1) the single Krasnojarsk, Siberia, mass, (2) the two large masses of the Brahin,

Belorussiya, meteorite, and (3) the Imilac, Chile, shower. Both Krasnojarsk and Brahin were

ruled out of a possible hoax scenario on the basis of physical properties and state of corrosion,

which left Imilac as the only possibility short of invoking an otherwise completely unknown fall.

They therefore undertook detailed metallographic and mineralogical examinations of the Port

Orford specimen and several Imilac specimens in an attempt to resolve the matter.

They find that the Port Orford specimen is a main group pallasite that is chemically,

structurally, and morphologically indistinguishable from Imilac. The steep thermal gradient of

its heat-altered zone shows it to be an individual from a shower-producing fall and that it could

not have been a specimen removed from a large mass. Its weathering history suggests the arid

conditions of the high desert of Chile, not the humid Oregon coast forests. Port Orford's

kamacite composition and hardness, olivine composition, trace element levels in metal, and

shock levels in kamacite and troilite are all within observed ranges for the Imilac shower or

within reasonable extensions thereof. These many congruencies led Buchwald and Clarke to

conclude that the Port Orford meteorite is an Imilac specimen, and that Evans perpetrated a

deliberate hoax using a small Imilac individual as bait.

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is

recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. SERIES COVER DESIGN: Volcanic

eruption at the island of Krakatau in 1883.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Port Orford, Oregon, meteorite mystery / Roy S. Clarke, Jr., editor.

p. cm.—(Smithsonian contributions to the earth sciences ; no. 31)

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Port Orford meteorite—History. I. Clarke, Roy S. II. Series.

QB756.P67P67 1992 523.5T0979521-dc20 92-26788

® The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American

National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48—1984.
Contents

Page

EDITOR'S PREFACE vi

1. JOHN EVANS AND THE PORT ORFORD METEORITE HOAX,

by Howard Plotkin 1

Introduction 1

Acknowledgments 7

Rationale for a New Field Search 7

Identification of Bald Mountain 8

Author's Field Searches 9

Evans' Stature as a Scientist 11

Motivation for the Hoax 13

Reconstruction of the Hoax 15

Identity of the Port Orford Specimen 18

Conclusion 21

Notes 22

2. A MYSTERY SOLVED: THE PORT ORFORD METEORITE IS AN IMILAC SPECIMEN,

by Vagn F. Buchwald and Roy S. Clarke, Jr 25

Introduction 25

Acknowledgments 27

Pallasites and Their Early History 27

Examination of Specimens 29

Port Orford Specimen USNM#617 30

The Vienna Port Orford Specimen #A662 34

The Arizona State University, Port Orford Specimen #1100 34

The Natural History Museum, London, Port Orford Specimen

#1985,M.187 35

The Geological Survey of India, Calcutta, Port Orford Specimen #11 36

Imilac Specimens 36

Discussion 36

Characteristics Derived from the Parent Body 36

Properties Related to Atmospheric Passage 37

Weathering History 40

Other Possible Pairings 40

Conclusions 41

Notes 41

Literature Cited 42
Editor's Preface

This combined presentation of an historical and a technical study of the enigmatic Port

Orford, Oregon, meteorite in Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences, although

unusual, is appropriate. The Smithsonian Institution was drawn into explorer John Evans'

Port Orford meteorite affair as the story began to unfold in about 1860, an early date in

Smithsonian history. For most of this century Smithsonian officials have been plagued by

the ensuing myth created by irresponsible reporting, as have officials of other agencies

both in Washington, D.C., and in Oregon. In addition, hundreds of adventurers and

treasure hunters have been misled, and a few endangered.

Howard Plotkin, an historian of science, was drawn to the mountains overlooking

Oregon's Pacific Ocean coast by the Port Orford myth in 1986 and again in 1987. He

hoped that this field work might yield information leading to the recovery of the legendary

10-ton meteorite that had been reported some 130 years earlier but has never been

relocated. In his paper he recounts how this field work, in conjunction with his manuscript

research, led to a reinterpretation of the character and career of John Evans. A completely

new approach to the Port Orford mystery resulted. The main conclusion Plotkin draws is

that the Port Orford meteorite specimen was a prop in a deliberate and elaborate hoax. The

specimen, he further concludes, was actually from the well-known Imilac, Chile, meteorite

shower.

As Curator-in-Charge of the collection that now houses the Port Orford specimen, I had

provided Plotkin with information on the Port Orford mystery. As a consequence, he sent

me an early draft of his manuscript in the late summer of 1987, shortly before Vagn

Buchwald arrived in Washington, D.C., from Copenhagen for a sabbatical visit. We were

both fascinated with the new insight provided by Plotkin's work, and it proved a timely

juxtaposition of backgrounds and interests.

Experience gained in working with the meteorite collection and in answering the many

Port Orford meteorite queries had led me to conclude by the mid 1970s that the Port Orford

specimen was actually a piece of the Imilac shower, but I could not prove it. Buchwald

previously had done extensive field and laboratory work on the Imilac shower and, with

my encouragement, he undertook a comprehensive metallographic study of the Port

Orford specimen to see what could be deduced from the specimen itself. The small

specimen provided a surprisingly rich source of interpretable information. As work

progressed the conclusion became inescapable to us that the Imilac strewnfield was the

source of the bait for the hoax, and our technical paper was written, in a form that we hope

will be accessible to the lay reader. Speaking for all three authors, it is our view that the two

papers taken together resolve the meteoritic aspects of the Port Orford affair. At the very

least, the new information we provide will irrevocably transform the character of any

future discussion of the issue.

It is with deep appreciation for a distinguished colleague and friend of many years that

I note here that Edward Porter Henderson who was bom December 31, 1898 died on

September 12, 1992 as these papers were passing through final stages of preparation for

publication. Throughout more than 50 years he was intrigued by the Port Orford problem,

made important contributions to our understanding of it, and was the Smithsonian's front

man in dealing with the public on the issue. Appropriately, the Edward P. Henderson and

Rebecca Rogers Henderson Meterorite Fund is partially supporting distribution of this

publication to the public.

VI
The Port Orford, Oregon,

Meteorite Mystery

1. John Evans and the Port Orford Meteorite Hoax

Howard Plotkin

Introduction

The lost Port Orford meteorite, allegedly discovered by John

Evans in 1856, has long puzzled meteoriticists, troubled

government officials, and served as a source of adventure for

treasure hunters. Contracted by the United States Department

of Interior to explore Oregon and Washington territories, Evans

claimed that he chipped a small piece off a huge 10-ton boulder

on Bald Mountain, one of the rugged Rogue River Mountains

in southwestern Oregon. The meteoritic character of the

specimen was immediately realized by Charles T. Jackson

when he examined it three years later. A noted Boston chemist,

Jackson was one of the scientists employed by Evans to analyze

his mineral specimens. Jackson hurriedly announced his

findings to the Boston Society of Natural History on 5 October

1859,1 and sent a fragment to W.K. Haidinger, an international

authority on meteorites in Vienna, for confirmation. Haidinger

verified that it was a pallasite, one of the rarest forms of

meteorites, and reported his findings to the Vienna Academy of

Sciences.2 Distinguished from all other meteorites by their

combination of olivine and nickel-iron in subequal amounts,

pallasites now constitute approximately only 1.5% of all

known falls and finds.3

Jackson enthusiastically wrote Evans, who resided in

Washington, D.C., asking him if he could possibly relocate the

giant meteorite. Evans replied that "there cannot be the least

difficulty in my finding the meteorite," and gave a general

description of its location.4 In the ensuing correspondence,

Evans and Jackson discussed the idea of Evans returning to

Oregon to recover the meteorite and transport it to Washington,

D.C., as a museum specimen for the Smithsonian Institution.5

Howard Plotkin, Department of Philosophy and Department of

History of Medicine, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

N6A 3K7.

They then persuaded various scientific academies, including

the Boston Society of Natural History and the Academy of

Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, to petition Congress to

finance such an expedition.6 Evans even suggested that these

societies themselves might raise the funds to procure the

meteorite in whole or in part, should Congress fail to make the

necessary appropriation. In return, the meteorite could be cut

up into several pieces, with each sponsoring society receiving

a sample.7

While these plans were underway, however, two events

occurred that brought the plans to an abrupt end. On 12 April

1861 Fort Sumter was fired upon, signalling the beginning of

the Civil War. And on the following day, Evans unexpectedly

died at age forty-nine from a very mild attack of pneumonia.

The timing of Evans' death is rather startling, given that it

occurred both unexpectedly and on the day after he received

news that would crush all his hopes. Is it possible that he died

of apoplexy when he realized that the attack on Fort Sumter

doomed any chance of receiving a congressional appropriation? Is suicide a possibility? The only firm details we have

regarding his death are those given in Jackson's "Sketch":

We have no doubt that Dr. Evans' constitution was enfeebled by his exposure

in that region [at Chiriqui, on the Isthmus of Panama] during the summer

months and the rainy season, so as to render him incapable of resisting the very

mild attack of pneumonia, which ended his career by death, in Washington,

April 13th, 1861.8

Although this sounds plausible, the claim that Evans'

constitution was somehow weakened during his stay at

Chiriqui has been disputed by his great-grandson, Richard X.

Evans:

Dr. Evans was charmed by the Chiriqui climate, and intended eventually to

move there with his family. He slept out of doors for ten nights in a hammock

stretched under a palm roof, with the land breeze passing over a nearby swamp,
SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

without as he said, suffering any inconvenience, and "not a moment's ill

health."9

Without further evidence, therefore, the real cause of Evans'

death must remain moot.

Embroiled in the chaos of war, Congress obviously was in no

position to underwrite a costly expedition to recover the

meteorite. Moreover, Evans' death meant that its exact location

would never be known. All official efforts to relocate and

retrieve the massive meteorite were dropped. But eventually

word began to spread that a huge meteorite lay somewhere on

an Oregon mountainside near the town of Port Orford, and

nearby residents began combing the hills in search of it (Figure

1-1).

This activity intensified when, in 1917, a journal of Evans'

"Route from Port Orford Across the Rogue River Mountains"

was found by David Bushnell in New Orleans, where he had

tracked down the widow of one of Evans' sons, Richard J.

FlGUREl-2 (opposite page).—Evan's journal entries for 20-22 July 1856. The

first of these days was a lay-by day spent at his campsite at the present-day

Powers Ranch basin. On the following day, 21 July, Evans specifically

mentions climbing Bald Mountain, and describes its position relative to

Johnson's gold mines on a fork of the Coquille River and to the "Great Bend"

(i.e., the Big Bend of the Rogue River). This and other evidence helps identify

Bald Mountain as Johnson Mountain.

Evans. The journal subsequently was deposited in the

Smithsonian Institution10 (Figure 1-2). Bushnell was an

anthropologist with a special interest in American Indians, and

a friend of a branch of the Evans family living in Washington,

D.C. In the summer of 1929, the Smithsonian dispatched W.F.

Foshag, the Curator of Mineralogy and Petrology, to try to find

the lost meteorite.11

Searches reached a feverish pitch in 1937, when some

Oregon newspapers carried stories that the Smithsonian would

reward its finder with up to $2,000,000. J. Hugh Pruett, an

astronomer at the University of Oregon, for example, wrote in

FIGURE 1-1.—Port Orford, Oregon, in its heyday in the 1850s. From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October,

1856.
NUMBER 31

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SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

The Sunday Oregonian:

The Smithsonian Institution a few years ago made an offer of $1 a pound for

almost any kind of meteoritic material. Good specimens have sometimes found

buyers at $10, $20, or even $100 a pound. The "lost Port Orford" is of the type

that usually brings "top prices."12

The Smithsonian, of course, had never made such an

outlandish offer, but the newspaper accounts spurred hundreds

of persons wishing to combine a summer holiday with an

adventurous treasure hunt to search for the meteorite. Within

two years of the appearance of the newspaper stories, a local

Society for the Recovery of the Lost Port Orford Meteorite had

been formed (mainly through the efforts of Myron D. Kilgore,

a local resident of Lakeside, Oregon) and was initiating

searches. In the summer of 1939, the Smithsonian mounted its

second search, carried out by Edward P. Henderson, Associate

Curator, Division of Mineralogy and Petrology. Like all

previous searches, however, Henderson's failed to provide any

trace of the meteorite.13

The unsuccessful searches did little to dampen the spirits of

the meteorite's would-be rediscoverers. By 1964, Hollis M.

Dole, State Geologist, Oregon Department of Geology and

Mineral Industries, observed that "several dozen parties each

year spend many thousands of man hours in this area searching

for the Port Orford [meteorite]. This has gone on for at least 50

years."14 Above all else, searchers relied on Evans' journal for

guidance.

Several features of this journal are worth mentioning. Most

important is the fact that it is not Evans' original journal, but a

copy. That the handwriting is not Evans' is not only my

opinion, but also that of handwriting experts at the FBI, who

have been sent samples for study.15 Henderson notes that the

journal, written on 12]/2 inch by 8 inch paper, is not bound, and

points out that "surely an experienced explorer, such as Dr.

Evans, would not carry unbound paper into the field to keep

notes on."16 Nor is the journal complete. Words and phrases

clearly have been added or deleted in several places; entries for

the days between 3-17 July 1856 are missing; and the most

famous section, beginning on 18 July 1856 under the title of the

journal, is preceded by the words "see section and notes not

here copied." Clearly, then, the journal is a transcription,

possibly copied from Evans' original notebook(s), now lost, on

his return to Washington, D.C. There is no firm evidence as to

who transcribed it, but one of Evans' letters reveals that he

employed a Clifford Evans (a relative?) as a copyist.17 These

findings do not necessarily compromise the value of the

journal, but suggest that it should be used with a certain amount

of caution.

Although no mention of a meteorite or anything resembling

one is made in the journal, searchers read and reread it for

hitherto unnoticed clues, pitting their wits against the available

evidence, "urged on by the vague notion that some day the

pieces must fall into place, revealing the absolute and true

location" of the lost meteorite.18 Swamped with requests for

information on the meteorite and Evans' journal, the Smithsonian began mailing inquirers prepared information sheets

answering the following frequently asked questions:

1. Where can I get a copy of Dr. Evans's diary or account of his journey?

2. Has the government offered a reward for the Port Orford meteorite?

3. Will the government claim the Port Orford meteorite if it is found?

4. I am thinking of flying over the area Dr. Evans explored to look for a

crater made by the meteorite. Would this be advisable?

5. Where may I find further information on the Port Orford meteorite?

So enigmatic was the story of the discovery and subsequent

loss of the Port Orford meteorite that it had "achieved a status

bordering on the mythical for most people."19

But by this time, 1964, Henderson had come to have strong

doubts about Evans' story. His examination of Evans'

specimen, which had been acquired by the Smithsonian

through a trade with the Boston Society of Natural History in

1920,20 revealed that it was covered in places with "fresh flight

crust" showing "delicate markings," that the metal was not

battered, and that the olivine crystals were "bright and

unusually free from alteration." These features led him to

conclude that the specimen "was not removed from a large

mass by a hammering operation," as Evans had claimed.21

Henderson further pointed out that "it is not an easy matter to

break off a piece of a pallasite." Finally, he asked an obvious

but particularly bothersome question: "How do you account for

the fact that Dr. Evans would comment about granites, talc, etc.

[in his journal], and then fail to describe in some detail the most

unusual specimen he perhaps ever found in his life?"22

Believing that searchers were essentially wasting their time

looking for the meteorite, Henderson and Dole published a

critical paper, "The Port Orford Meteorite," in The Ore Bin, the

monthly publication of the Oregon Department of Geology and

Mineral Industries. In it they reproduced relevant sections of

Evans' journal, related Henderson's attempt to retrace Evans'

route across the Rogue River Mountains in his 1939 search for

the meteorite, and expressed their doubts about Evans' story

(Figure 1-3). But so great was the allure of rediscovering the

meteorite that their publication did little to deter people from

continuing their searches. If anything, it had precisely the

opposite effect: "You will be chagrined to learn," Dole

lamented to Henderson, "that our article has engendered more

activity in the actual search for the Port Orford [meteorite] than

it has to curtail it. Oh woe is me!"23

Few persons seemed prepared to believe that Evans' story

was not true. Typically, Evans was defended on the basis of his

revered stature as a scientist, and by the fact that he had no

reason to lie about his discovery. Ellen C. Sedell, an

unaffiliated researcher from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for

example, described Evans as "precise and thorough in his work,

honest, and a man of integrity," and claimed "we are doing a

great disservice to Dr. Evans by doubting his report."24 The late

Erwin F. Lange, Professor of General Science at Portland State

College, one of Evans' staunchest defenders, typified the

feelings of many as he adopted a wait-and-see attitude:

"Perhaps, as the search continues and all clues are carefully

studied this world famous meteorite may yet be uncovered."25

In the twenty-eight years that have passed since the

publication of the Henderson and Dole article, the search for the
NUMBER 31

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43*00'

42°»'

42°50'

42*45'

42*40'

124*35' 124*30' 124*25' 124*20' 124*15' 124*10' 124*05' 124*00' 123*55'

FIGURE 1-3.—E.P. Henderson's and Hollis M. Dole's reconstruction of Evans' route from Port Orford across the

Rogue River Mountains in 1856 is shown by the dashed line. Numbers indicate locations of camp sites for the

nights of (1) 18 July, (2) 19 and 20 July, (3) 21 July, (4) 22 July. Revised from The Ore Bin, July 1964.

lost Port Orford meteorite has continued unabated. Roy S.

Clarke, Jr., the Smithsonian's present Curator-in-Charge,

Division of Meteorites, bemoans the fact that he has "already

had more than one lifetime's worth of correspondence related

to the Port Orford meteorite." He goes on, however, to propose

a solution: "My best hope for surcease ... is that historians get

in there and clean up the mess."26

The author of this study has taken that as his charge. In an

endeavor to solve the puzzle of the lost Port Orford meteorite,

all of Evans' letters and reports concerning his Oregon

explorations on file in the records of the General Land Office

and the Office of Explorations and Surveys in the National

Archives were examined. So, too, were other letters known to

exist in various government repositories, historical societies,

and university archives. Evans' journal was meticulously

examined in an effort to reconstruct his route out of Port Orford

across the Rogue River Mountains. This route was then

compared against those laid down on existing mid-nineteenthcentury maps on file in the records of the Office of the Chief of

Engineers in the National Archives, on old Bureau of Land

Management plats, on old U.S. Geological Survey topographic

maps, and on old Forest Service aerial photographs. Evans'

"Descriptive Catalogue of Geological Specimens Collected in

Oregon and Washington Territory," on file in the Smithsonian

Archives, was carefully scrutinized for possible clues (Figure

1-4). This 26-page handwritten manuscript, apparently un-
SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

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NUMBER 31

known to Foshag and Henderson, has never before been

mentioned in print. Like Evans' journal, however, the

"Descriptive Catalogue" is also not an original document, but

a copy. On the basis of the handwriting, I am firmly convinced

that it was transcribed by Mrs. Evans. While many geological

specimens collected in the Port Orford area, even on Bald

Mountain itself, are discussed in it, none, however, bears even

a remote resemblance to a description of a meteorite.27 Old

mining claims also were studied, as were manuscript and

printed accounts dealing with Evans and/or previous searches

for the meteorite. Several promising areas on the mountain that

I identify as Evans' Bald Mountain were searched with highly

sensitive proton magnetometers. Numerous attempts were

made to track down previously unknown Evans letters, lost

manuscripts, and surviving descendants. Prominent contemporary meteoriticists were contacted for their views, and the Port

Orford specimen in the Smithsonian Institution was examined.

My investigation led me to the inescapable conclusion that

Evans' story was nothing more than an elaborate hoax. In the

pages that follow I describe the details of the field searches for

the meteorite, assess Evans' stature as a scientist, explain his

motivation to lie about his alleged discovery, and reconstruct

how he carried out his hoax. Finally, I deal with the last

remaining piece of the puzzle, the true identity of the genuine

meteoritic fragment that Evans forwarded to Jackson for

analysis.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities

Research Council of Canada for the award of two grants that

helped me to carry out field research in Oregon in the summers

of 1986 and 1987.

I am happy to acknowledge the great debt I owe to Douglas

Borgard, of Bandon, Oregon. During my two field searches

with him on Johnson Mountain, as well as afterward, we had

countless hours of give-and-take discussion on the intriguing

lost Port Orford meteorite. Although it is no exaggeration to say

that without his help this paper could not have been written in

its present form, I take sole responsibility for the interpretations

and conclusions that appear herein.

Because the Smithsonian Institution "has been fortunate

enough to have the [Port Orford] specimen and to have had its

name associated with the hoax from the beginning," I have

found it necessary to call on various persons there time and

time again for help in one way or another. Their responses

always have been most generous. At the Division of Meteorites, National Museum of Natural History, Roy S. Clarke, Jr.

(whose wry comment I quote above), graciously answered a

myriad of questions I put to him, made valuable comments on

various drafts of this study, discussed them with other

interested meteoriticists, arranged for a new polished section of

the Port Orford specimen to be prepared for study, and offered

helpful advice on various matters relating to publication. It is

my great pleasure to thank him publicly for his constant support

and encouragement. On one of my visits to the Division, I was

fortunate to talk with the late Edward P. Henderson about his

thoughts on, and early search for, the Port Orford meteorite,

and to be shown the specimen by Twyla B. Thomas, who

shared her knowledge of it with me. At the Smithsonian

Archives I thank William A. Deiss, who read an earlier draft of

this paper and arranged for me to present my findings in the

Smithsonian's "Research in Progress" seminar series, and

William Cox, who located much unpublished material and

kindly provided me with reproductions.

In addition to the many persons in archives, libraries,

government agencies, and universities who generously have

aided my research, I would especially like to thank the

following: Richard Pugh, Cleveland High School, Portland,

Oregon, who generously supplied me with a copy of the late

Erwin F. Lange's file on the Port Orford meteorite; Carleton B.

Moore, Center for Meteorite Studies, Arizona State University,

for his ready responses to my inquiries; Ursula B. Marvin,

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Robert T.

Dodd, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, State

University of New York at Stony Brook, and Marc Rothenberg,

Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution, who offered

helpful comments on a draft of this study; Diane Tyler, Editor,

Smithsonian Institution Press, whose keen editorial eye helped

to clarify the final draft in many significant ways; and Vagn F.

Buchwald, Department of Metallurgy, The Technical University, Lyngby, Denmark, whose interest in an earlier draft of this

study led him to conduct a new series of investigations on the

Port Orford specimen and some of the Smithsonian's Imilac

specimens. Insofar as the Buchwald-Clarke study and mine

complement and reinforce one another, I am especially pleased

that they can be presented together here in this format.

The task of preparing this manuscript for publication has

been admirably performed by Nancy Patrick, to whom I am

most grateful. Not only has she labored with incredible skill,

patience, and good humor, but she also has managed to teach

me a great deal about personal computers in the process.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife Donna and my

children Rachel, Julie, and Jeremy. Without their love and

support, this study would have remained a chimera.

Rationale for a New Field Search

From the earliest stages of the investigation, several things

worried me and made me think that something was seriously

wrong with Evans' story. Henderson had already given voice to

some of these in 1964, e.g., the fact that no mention of a

meteorite, or anything resembling one, was ever made in

Evans' journal (or his "Descriptive Catalogue of Geological

Specimens"), that the Port Orford specimen did not look as

though it had been hammered off a large mass, and that it would

have been difficult to do this. Even the editors of the American

Journal of Science alluded to this in an editorial note:
SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

If the Bald Mountain meteoric iron is like in tenacity and hardness to that of

most known masses of similar origin, the dissection of it would prove a task of

far more difficulty than seems to have been supposed by Dr. Evans.28

In addition to these, I thought of several other reasons why

doubt could be cast on Evans' story. In the first place, the sheer

size of the meteorite raised alarm. Evans estimated its mass to

be 10-11 tons; this would make it by far the largest pallasite

discovered at that time, some fifteen times larger, for example,

than the famous Krasnojarsk pallasite found in 1749.29 In fact,

it would be the twelfth largest meteorite of any kind discovered

to date.30 Evans, apparently unfamiliar with meteorite sizes,

must not have realized how inordinately large he was claiming

the Port Orford meteorite to be. Moreover, due to their

composite silicate-iron structure most pallasites do not survive

their flight through the earth's atmosphere and/or impact intact,

but break up. The Brenham, for example, discovered in 1882,

yielded over 5.5 tons of meteoritic material, making it the

largest known pallasite to date. But it broke up into more than

2000 fragments, the biggest of which weighed only 454.5 kg.31

The largest individual pallasite specimen ever discovered is the

Huckitta, found in 1924. Its weight of 1408 kg, however, would

make it only one-seventh the size of the Port Orford.32

Secondly, various descriptions that Evans gave of his

discovery of the meteorite conflict so widely as to seem

irreconcilable. In one letter, for example, he wrote that there

was nothing at all unusual about the specimen, and that he

mistook it for a common piece of iron ore: "The small specimen

analysed by Dr. Jackson was collected by me as an ordinary

specimen of iron ore. I had no idea that it was meteoric."33 Yet

Jackson related Evans' discovery story in very different terms:

"The singularity of its appearance caused him to observe very

closely its situation, so that when his attention was called to the

subject [three years later, when Jackson analyzed it], he readily

remembered the position, form, appearance, and magnitude of

the mass."34 Additionally, why was there such a long delay

between the time of Evans' discovery and Jackson's analysis?

Thirdly, several aspects of Evans' discovery struck me as

being excessively opportune. The meteorite's fresh fusion crust

indicated that it could not have been in the excessively moist

Oregon soil for long, but must have been a rather fresh fall. Had

it been an older fall, it undoubtedly would have decomposed or

weathered to such an extent that it would no longer attract a

collector's notice. But it did attract Evans' attention, because it

allegedly was found under the luckiest of all possible

circumstances: on a grassy slope, in an area devoid of trees or

rocks, on the trail, and on a mountain that was the highest point

on his journey from Port Orford across the Rogue River

Mountains.35 Of course it could be argued that these were all

fortuitous coincidences, coincidences that, in fact, led to the

meteorite's discovery, but the odds against this seemed

overwhelming to me.

Finally, if everything Evans said about the meteorite were

true, how could it be possible that no one else has ever found it?

Surely prospectors working in the area at the time of Evans'

discovery would have noticed it, and would have checked it

carefully to see if it were a precious metal like silver, or a

common piece of iron ore. It further seemed highly unlikely to

me that such a large mass could have escaped detection by the

hundreds and hundreds of persons who have diligently

searched for it throughout the years. Although Evans claimed

that the meteorite was found in an area "subject to washings

from rains and melting of snow in the spring, so that in a few

years these causes might cover up a large portion of it,"36 it is

equally possible that these causes might uncover portions of the

meteorite, making it more visible. It also struck me that this

sounded suspiciously like a convenient excuse for Evans to use

if the appropriation from Congress came through and he

returned to Oregon to retrieve the meteorite, but came back

empty-handed.

In spite of all these doubts, however, there remained the

nagging possibility that everything Evans said about the

meteorite just might have been true, that all of the abovementioned fortuitous circumstances did, remarkably enough,

lay behind his discovery, and that a massive 10-ton pallasite

was actually lying on Bald Mountain, waiting to be rediscovered. Although I judged the odds for this to be slim, I felt

that a field search on Bald Mountain was essential to the effort

to solve this 136-year-old mystery.

Identification of Bald Mountain

Before beginning the search for the meteorite, it was first

necessary to identify which mountain was Evans' Bald

Mountain. Evans' letters to Jackson contained several clues. In

one letter, for example, he wrote:

The western face of Bald Mountain, where it [the meteorite] is situated, is, as

its name indicates, bare of timber, a grassy slope, without projecting rocks in

the immediate vicinity of the meteorite. The mountain is a prominent landmark,

seen for a long distance on the ocean, as it is higher than any of the surrounding

mountains It is situated in a mountainous region, thirty to thirty-five miles

from the coast, and the only access to it is by mountain trails.

Evans also mentioned in this letter that a river "passes the base

of the mountain, and empties into the Pacific." One final

tantalizing piece of information also is contained in this letter.

Evans stated: "It would doubtless be best and most economical

to make a preliminary visit [back] to the locality, accompanied

only by the two voyageurs alluded to in my last letter." Because

these two voyageurs had accompanied Evans on his expedition,

they presumably also would have seen the meteorite Evans

claimed to have found, and thus possibly could provide

invaluable information concerning its location. Although

Jackson did not relate any details from Evans' last letter, he

parenthetically did say that they were "two of the Canadian

Frenchmen in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company."37

Unfortunately, however, it has not been possible to unearth any

information about these two voyageurs, so this information

provides no help in identifying Bald Mountain.

A few additional details are provided in a second letter: "The
NUMBER 31

locality is about forty miles from Port Orford, in the mountains

which rise almost directly from the coast, only accessible by

pack mules."38

As explicit as these details seem, they do not, unfortunately,

provide sufficient information to make a positive identification.

In Evans' time, "Bald Mountain" was a general term

indiscriminately given to any unnamed mountain having a high

grassy prairie. This has led one observer to comment:

There is probably a Bald Mountain in every county in the state, and more than

one in some. The ease with which this descriptive name was applied does not

speak well for the geographic imagination or ingenuity of early settlers.39

More information is therefore necessary in order to conclusively determine which of the Rogue River Mountains is the

one that Evans was referring to.

Evans' journal provides this necessary information (Figure

1-2). In it, he relates that on the afternoon of 19 July 1856 he

"crossed two or three small creeks, forks of Sixes River,

camped at 5 p.m. on a small creek tributary of Salmon River

[sic]."40 There can be little doubt that the location that Evans

described is that of the present-day Powers Ranch basin.

Moreover, because he estimated that at this point he had

travelled 39 miles since leaving Port Orford, this would have

placed him very near his 40-mile estimate of the location of the

Bald Mountain on which he claimed to have found the

meteorite (Figure 1-3).

The following day was a lay-by day, during which Evans

"collected a few specimens of grass," but did not travel. On the

next day, 21 July, he specifically mentions climbing Bald

Mountain:

Passed along two prairie ridges and woodland to a high and steep mountain

estimated at two thousand feet in elevation Passed over a high (bald)

mountain so called, but while of great elevation it is covered at the summit with

most luxuriant grass and flowers.

After crossing the mountain he descended "to the gold mines of

Johnson and others on the fork of the Coquille R[iver] Abbott's

branch" (Figure 1-5). Evans estimated that these mines were 12

miles from the "Great Bend" (i.e., the Big Bend of the Rogue

River, near the present town of Illahe). From this description it

is clear that the "fork of the Coquille" being mined was Johnson

Creek, and that Evans' "Bald Mountain" is Johnson Mountain.

Both Johnson Creek and Johnson Mountain had been named

after "Coarse Gold" Johnson, who discovered rich nuggets of

gold in the creek in 1854.41

Additional support for this identification is furnished by

Evans' description, given the following day, of his view from

the summit of Bald Mountain:

Overlooking the tops of surrounding mountains for thirty miles or more in

every direction except perhaps one where at a distance of ten or fifteen miles is

a range of perhaps greater elevation. Amongst the ocean of lofty ranges of

rather smooth outline some jagged peaks tower up in bold and rugged grandeur.

This perfectly describes the panoramic vista from the lookout

knob on Johnson Mountain at an elevation of 2941 feet, some

2121 feet above the Powers Ranch basin. On clear days the

Pacific, some 30 miles to the west, can be seen from this

summit.

Still further corroboration is provided by Evans' description

of his route after leaving the summit:

Our route continued along a high ridge, of which the peak just referred to is a

part, passed through several prairies similar to those previously

noted... passing down into the valley we crossed the river. Spent three hours

looking for trail to Enchanted Prairie.

On the basis of this it is possible to retrace Evans' route as he

followed the ridgeline north of the lookout knob, descended

Johnson Mountain between Pole Creek and Grant Creek, and

went north along the Coquille in the neighborhood of the

present town of Powers looking for the trail to Enchanted

Prairie (on the Middle Fork of the Coquille, between the

present towns of Bridge and Remote).

Finally, Johnson Mountain meets perfectly all of the criteria

for Bald Mountain provided in Evans' letters to Jackson.

Namely, it is about 30 to 35 miles from the coast and about 40

miles from Port Orford, it is higher than the surrounding

mountains, it is visible from the ocean, there are grassy prairies

on its western face, and there is a river that passes its base and

empties into the Pacific. No other mountain completely meets

all of these criteria. It is virtually certain, therefore, that

Johnson Mountain is the Bald Mountain on which Evans

claimed to have found the Port Orford meteorite.

Author's Field Searches

My field searches on Johnson Mountain were carried out in

conjunction with Douglas Borgard, a native of nearby Bandon,

Oregon. When I first contacted him in the spring of 1986, he

already had spent several years researching the Port Orford

meteorite story, and had, despite his youth, acquired the

reputation of being the person who probably knew more about

it than anyone else. In preparing for our field work, we took

note of the fact that Johnson Mountain already had been the

object of serious searches by Myron D. Kilgore of the Society

for the Recovery of the Lost Port Orford Meteorite, and by E.P.

Henderson of the Smithsonian Institution. It is interesting to

note that although the first Smithsonian search carried out by

Foshag had centered on Iron Mountain, he afterward felt

"inclined to believe that Johnson Mountain is the place."42 We

also were aware that hundreds of holiday adventurers had

searched the area, and that various portions of the mountain had

been logged since the 1950s. This led us to believe that if the

meteorite were there, it must be hidden from view, either

covered by vegetation or, worse, buried under feet of dirt by a

mountain slide. We therefore decided to use magnetometers to

aid us in our search.

The particular instrument we chose was the proton magnetometer, so-named because it utilizes the precession of spinning

protons or nuclei of the hydrogen atom in a sample of
10

SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES
NUMBER 31 11

FIGURE 1-5 (opposite page).—The author's reconstruction of Evans' route from

the Powers Ranch basin over Bald Mountain (Johnson Mountain) to the gold

mines on Johnson Creek is shown by the dashed line. Evans' route back over

Johnson Mountain on his way toward present-day Powers is also shown. From

U.S. Geological Survey 7.5 minute topographical maps, Barklow Mountain and

China Flat Quadrangles. Width of map shows a distance of 3.75 miles.

hydrocarbon fluid to measure magnetic intensity.43 Highly

sensitive and very portable, these instruments have been used

successfully to find such diverse buried objects as pipelines,

survey benchmarks, archaeological pottery and tombs, aircraft

flight recorders, and even skiers buried in avalanches. For our

search procedure we decided to use parallel traverses, spaced

30 feet apart, taking readings every 30 feet. Based on the

assumption that the meteorite would be a typical pallasite, and

hence contain about 50%, or five tons, of iron, we figured that

if the meteorite were hidden on the surface, it would produce an

anomalous magnetic intensity reading of at least 3000 gammas;

if buried at, say, 20 feet, at least 900 gammas.44

Our magnetometer searches on Johnson Mountain, the first

ever conducted there, were carried out during portions of the

summers of 1986 and 1987. In 1986 we limited our

investigation to some promising areas on or near the top part of

the mountain, specifically the lookout knob, Flannigan Prairie,

and the area near the southern summit. The first two of these

areas are large grassy prairies that extend down the western face

of the mountain, whereas the southern summit shows evidence

that it might have contained some grassy areas on its western

face in Evans' time. Since the time of our initial search,

however, closer analyses of the number of growth rings of the

tree stumps on the western face of the southern summit have

convinced us that the small size of the trees there is more a

result of stunted growth than young age. Consequently, we do

not now believe that the southern summit area could have been

a prairie in Evans' day. Because all three areas were either on

or near the old trails,45 moreover, they seemed to meet the main

criteria for the location of the meteorite.

Although we encountered several minor magnetic anomalies

in our search, the greatest ones, some of which were a few

thousand gammas, occurred in the region of the abandoned

White Rock Chromite Mine.46 Although they caused considerable excitement at first, we became convinced that these high

readings were due to the general magnetic properties of the

rocks and soil there, not to a single magnetic anomaly. They

occurred because chromite, itself usually nonmagnetic or only

very weakly magnetic, is often found in the presence of

magnetite. And magnetite, which originates from processes of

serpentinization, produces magnetic anomalies.47

Our 1987 field work centered mainly on the ridgeline leading

out of the Powers Ranch basin to the high, steep face of

Johnson Mountain below Flannigan Prairie. The large grassy

area from this ridgeline south to Tim Creek is known as

Panhandle Prairie. This area seemed especially promising for

several reasons. In the first place, there is some evidence that

the earliest trail out of the basin to Johnson Mountain and the

Johnson Creek mines was via this ridgeline.48 Secondly, Evans

specifically mentions in his journal that he followed two

"prairie ridges" out of the Powers Ranch basin to a "high and

steep" mountain. Although it also would have been possible to

approach Johnson Mountain via the Tim Creek ridgeline, the

presence of well-established trees there does not support the

idea that it could have been a prairie ridge in Evans' day (Figure

1-5). Moreover, the Tim Creek ridgeline does not lead to a

particularly "high and steep" section of Johnson Mountain.

Thirdly, whereas Evans' description in his 1 May 1860 letter to

Jackson of the western face of Bald Mountain as being "bare of

timber, a grassy slope, without projecting rocks" perfectly

describes the entire region of Panhandle Prairie, neither

Flannigan Prairie nor the lookout knob prairie is devoid of

rocks. Finally, the fact that Evans voiced a concern in one of his

letters that the meteorite might become buried by debris

washing down on it from above49 clearly implied that it was not

located on or even very near the summit, but at some distance

below it.

Together, all of these factors seemed to indicate that the

western prairie elevations of Johnson Mountain were even

more favorable search areas than those of the previous year.

The magnetometer readings in this entire area, however, were

incredibly flat. Lastly, we examined a small, high prairie a short

distance southwest of Flannigan Prairie that we did not search

the previous summer. But once again, the results were negative.

Combined with my earlier doubts, the failure of our field

work to uncover any trace of the meteorite seemed to me prima

facie proof that in some crucial ways Evans' story could not be

true. But without further supporting evidence I was reluctant to

positively conclude that the whole story was nothing but a

hoax. I therefore decided to do further research on Evans, and

to go back over all of his correspondence and notes, searching

this time not for clues to the meteorite's location, but for

evidence betraying a hoax. This new research produced

startling results: it indicated that Evans was ill-trained for his

work, which was superficial and unprofessional in its execution; that he ran into insurmountable debts, and then gambled

on receiving supplemental congressional appropriations to help

cover those debts; and that his travels through the Isthmus of

Panama provided him with the opportunity to acquire a

meteorite specimen.

Evans' Stature as a Scientist

Details about Evans' early life are somewhat sketchy. Born

on 14 February 1812 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he was

the son of Richard Evans, an associate justice of the Superior

Court of New Hampshire, and Anne Wendell (Penhallow)

Evans, the great-granddaughter of Chief Justice Samuel

Penhallow, who had emigrated to New England from Great

Britain in 1686. His early education was in the public school

system of Andover, Massachusetts. In 1831, at age nineteen, he
12 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

moved with his family to Washington, D.C., where he worked

as a clerk in the general Post Office Department for eight years.

On 16 May 1835 he married Sarah Zane Mills, the daughter of

Robert Mills, the architect of the Washington Monument, and

Eliza Barnwell (Smith) Mills, the daughter of General John

Smith of Hackwook Park, Virginia, a Revoultionary War

patriot.50

In 1839, Evans and his young family (there were three sons

and a daughter, but their birthdates are not known) moved to St.

Louis, Missouri. He studied medicine at the Medical Department of the St. Louis University, but there does not appear to be

any evidence that he ever earned a medical degree. Although he

frequently was referred to as Dr. John Evans during the period

1851-1853, this simply may have been the result of a

somewhat grandiose affectation on his part. In 1854, however,

he was awarded an honorary medical degree. He was informed

of this fact by A. Litton, a chemist at the St. Louis University

who apparently was close to Evans and later analyzed many of

the geological specimens he collected. But it is revealing that

the degree apparently was granted not in recognition of Evans'

studies, but rather as an attempt to stabilize his reckless ways:

It may not be uninteresting to you to know that at the last commencement of the

Medical Department of the St. Louis University the honorary degree of Doctor

of Medicine was conferred on you I now hope you will quit your roaming

habits, & settled [sic] down in some civilized country & practice medicine &

Christianity.51

The historical portrayal of Evans as a well-trained scientist

who did excellent field work in a professional manner and who

was highly regarded by his peers does not stand up to close

scrutiny. In many ways, Evans was poorly qualified to carry out

the geological surveys for which he was commissioned. He was

not a geologist by profession or training. There is no evidence

that he knew anything more about geology than any interested

and intelligent layman.

Evans' geological career began in 1847 when David Dale

Owen, a superb field geologist, appointed him as a sub-agent

on his four-year geological survey of Wisconsin, Minnesota,

Iowa, and part of the Nebraska Territory. It is not clear why

Evans was chosen for this task. Perhaps Litton had a hand in

this for he also was a member of Owen's expedition.52 In 1849,

as Evans was traveling high up the White River, he came upon

the extensive fossil remains of the South Dakota Badlands (or

Mauvaises Terres, as they were then called by French Canadian

trappers). Evans was the first scientist to explore and report on

this rich and very important fossil deposit. His report,

published by Owen in 1852, attracted wide attention and gave

Evans his first measure of credibility as a scientist.53

Following his return, Evans was appointed by the Department of the Interior in 1851, largely on Owen's recommendation, to explore the geology of the Oregon Territory. After his

first trip to Oregon (see below), as he was preparing to return

there in the spring of 1853, Evans received an offer from I.I.

Stevens, the newly appointed Governor of the Washington

Territory, to serve as the geologist of a Pacific Railroad survey

he was leading. Although the purpose of Steven's survey and

related ones was to explore routes for the proposed railroad

from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific coast, nearly all such

surveys included one or more geologists or naturalists. Stevens

was well aware of the fact that Evans was on his way back to

Oregon in connection with his work for the Department of the

Interior, and felt that he was therefore in a position to render

him valuable cooperative aid:

I am desirous there should be the most entire cooperation between yourself and

my expedition, so that our mutual labors shall promote in the most effective

manner the object we have in view. This can only be done by your becoming the

geologist of the expedition.54

Evans accepted this offer, and was informed by Stevens that he

would be paid $2000 for his labors, and be given an additional

$500 to hire an assistant.55 Evans then proposed that he return

to the Badlands on his way to Oregon in order to collect fossils

as part of his work for the Pacific Railroad Survey.

Evans' behavior during this expedition reveals that he had

scant regard for traditionally accepted professional norms. As

he was preparing for this trip to the-Badlands, F.V. Hayden and

Fielding B. Meek, both leading geologists of their day, were

preparing for a similar expedition to the Badlands. On learning

this, Evans did everything in his power to disrupt their

expedition. Meeting them in St. Louis he told them he was

"violently opposed" to their proposed trip and attempted to

keep them from leaving, claiming that they were poaching on

his discovery. He then tried to break up their expedition by

hiring Meek away as his own assistant. A heated exchange

ensued, "which was finally resolved by the forthright honesty

and patience of Meek and the good offices of George

Engelmann [a St. Louis physician who had a special interest in

botany] and Louis Agassiz [the highly regarded Swiss

naturalist from Harvard who became the principal American

opponent to evolution], who happened to be in St. Louis at the

time."56

Meek was distressed by this "extremely unpleasant" state of

affairs, but the matter did not end there. As Hayden's party and

Evans' steamed up the Missouri River together, Evans

unexpectedly left the boat at Council Bluffs, saying he would

go on to Fort Pierre by horseback, and meet them there. At first

Meek was at a loss to know what Evans' object was, but he

soon figured it out:

Evans says he will not leave the Fort until the boat comes, but I would not be

astonished if he would push immediately on to the Bad Lands and leave

Shumard [Benjamin F. Shumard, a physician who had previously worked with

Evans on Owen's survey and was now serving as Evans' assistant] to come on

with his provisions. If so, he will be there a few days ahead of us.57

Although Hayden and Meek briefly considered beating Evans

at his own game by racing him to the Badlands on horseback,

they feared the risk of doing so: "As this would only stimulate

Evans to greater exertions, we concluded we had better not do

so, especially as he could employ a strong force at the fort, if he

so chooses."58

The results of Evans' 1853 trip were disappointing. Many of
NUMBER 31 13

the fossils he collected were sent to Joseph Leidy in

Philadelphia for study. Leidy, a professor of anatomy at the

University of Pennsylvania and one of the greatest naturalists in

America in the last century, characterized the collection as a

hodgepodge weighing "nearly two tons, of which 800 lbs.

consist of uncharacteristic fragments, eventually to be thrown

away as utterly worthless."59

Evans never published these findings, or any other, from his

work on the Stevens survey. Two final reports were supposedly

lost in transit to Washington. A House Executive Document

states that Evans' report of his

route south of the Missouri and Yellowstone, and between the Milk and

Missouri Rivers ... sent from Washington Territory, where Dr. Evans was still

employed in the field when the report of Governor Stevens was submitted, was

lost on the route

and that his "route from Fort Benton to the lower Columbia"

was likewise lost.60

Disclosure of this in the official congressional report caused

Evans "much anxiety." At first he denied that there had been

any lost reports. He argued that by giving Stevens such things

as copies of his maps showing the various mountain passes and

trails, information on suitable depot points and the best way to

travel between them, and his barometrical observations, he had

fulfilled all of his contractual obligations.61

This was not a defensible position, however. Stevens had

specifically charged Evans with the task of preparing "the

geological paper for my report."62 Eventually Evans admitted

this, and that he had, in fact, failed to meet this charge. He now

tried to argue that the fault was not his, however. Prior to the

expedition he had written a set of instructions to help Stevens'

assistants in their geological collections.63 But they had let him

down badly, he claimed:

The result of all the collections of his various parties, and the report thereon, I

had the honor to submit to you on Saturday last, in a ticking sack 20 inches long

by 2 inches in diameter, together with a report from Dr. Suckley [George

Suckley, appointed as an assistant naturalist], of seven lines in length. I could

not make a report out of nothing.64

This claim, while it may well have been true, is not the real

reason why Evans did not produce a final written report for

Stevens. For in the very next paragraph of this letter, he states

that

I had in previous explorations examined all the passes explored by Gov.

Stevens' parties; and made geological collections along the route. But did not

conceive it to be my duty to turn over to Gov. Stevens this information on his

failure to pay the expenses as agreed upon.65

This clearly reveals that Evans did, in fact, have sufficient

material at hand to compile a report for Stevens, but failed to do

so solely for financial considerations.

Evans' surviving geological notes from this expedition, kept

in his journals, show that although he was an accurate

describer, his analysis was cursory. George P. Merrill, the

Curator of Geology at the Smithsonian from 1897 to his death

in 1929, characterized Evans' notes as follows:

The geological notes with all [geological] sections missing are of little moment,

consisting mainly of references to the lithological character of the rocks

observed with little concerning dip or strike, and nothing relative to their fossil

contents.66

These kinds of difficulties, i.e., superficial field work,

unprofessional conduct, and financial problems, were in

evidence from the beginning of Evans' career, and would

continue to plague him throughout. In the end, they would

consume him. Viewing Evans in this new light made a hoax

scenario much more palatable to my mind.

Motivation for the Hoax

Just as the portrayal of Evans as a revered scientist did not

stand up under close scrutiny, neither does the assertion that he

had no reason to lie about his discovery of the meteorite. In

fact, he had a compelling reason—a desperate need for money.

That Evans would run into serious financial difficulties was

apparent almost from the beginning. In 1851 he was appointed

by the Department of the Interior "to commence a Geological &

Mineralogical Survey West of the Cascade Mountains in

Oregon Territory, beginning with the main lines for the public

Surveys."67 Before commencing, he had outlined to J.

Butterfield, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, not

only the extent of what he proposed to survey, but also how he

wished to be paid:

As to the expense of the reconnaissance, I am willing to undertake it with the

means at the disposal of the Department: trusting that if after the exercise of the

most rigid economy, the expense should be greater than the amount now

applicable to the survey, that the Government would provide for the deficiency

by future appropriations.68

Although the commissioner agreed fully with Evans'

proposed extent of the survey, he made no promises, explicit or

implicit, that the government would provide for any deficiency.

Rather, he pointedly told Evans that he would be paid "six

dollars per day, and ... necessary expenses en route," and that

his accounts would "be rendered in the usual mode, with which

you are already familiar." The bottom line was that Evans had

to keep "within the limits of the means which the Department

has the power to devote to the purpose in view, viz. thirty five

hundred dollars."69

In spite of these explicit instructions, Evans did not keep his

costs within the stated budget. By July, only four months later,

he wrote from Oregon that he would not return to Washington,

D.C., at the beginning of the rainy season, as planned, but

would stay on until the following rainy season. As a result, the

cost of the survey would almost triple to $10,000, but he

gambled on his "trust that Congress will make the necessary

appropriation."70

Although he received no promise that any supplemental

appropriation would be forthcoming, Evans decided the

following summer that he would remain in Oregon "until

further instructions are received from the Department."71 He

finally returned to Washington, D.C., in December 1852.

Shortly thereafter, in March 1853, Congress appropriated an
14 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

additional $16,984; $11,984 "for expenses incurred in a

geological survey of Oregon," and an additional $5,000 "to

complete the reconnaissance."72 Evans' gamble had paid off. In

April he was instructed to return to Oregon to complete his

survey.

This time Evans remained in Oregon for little more than a

year, returning to Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1854. During

this trip he spent all of the newly allotted budget, and ran up

another large deficit. This was unavoidable, he claimed, due to

such diverse factors as the extremely high prices of goods and

services in the wilderness, the difficulties of transportation, and

the mountainous character of the country explored.73

In March 1855, Congress appropriated another $23,560 for

Evans' survey; $5,692 to cover his incurred expenses over the

$5,000 he had been allotted previously, and an additional

$13,000 to complete the work.74 Armed with this, Evans made

a third trip to Oregon between May 1855 and the fall of 1856.

Once again, however, he exceeded the amount appropriated,

this time by $3,574.

In addition to this new deficit, Evans informed the General

Land Office in the fall of 1857 that his final report, the

Geological Survey of Oregon and Washington Territories,

would be "about two thirds the size of Dr. Owens' [sic] report;

and will cost, if published in the same style, $26,526, including

the cost of preparing all the maps and other illustrations."75

This amount included $7,500 he claimed he owed to the

various assistants he had hired to perform soil and mineralogical analyses, and to draw maps and illustrations.76

 In short, after

appropriations totalling $44,044 for his Oregon survey, which

originally had been budgeted at only $3,500, Evans was now

seeking an additional $30,100 appropriation (including his

deficit). This staggered the General Land Office, which claimed

that there simply was "no means applicable under existing

laws" to meet this expense.77

Evans' $3,574 Oregon deficit, when combined with the

$7,500 he owed his assistants, brought his personal debt to

$11,074. Evans must have realized that there was no way he

could recoup this money outright. His only hope was to link his

personal debt with the projected expenses for the publication of

his final report, and hope that Congress would pass a

supplemental appropriation bill that would cover everything.

But the amount involved was so great that this seemed beyond

hope. Evans' letters show that his personal debt weighed

heavily on him throughout the remainder of 1857, and grew

more and more oppressive as the sought-after appropriation bill

repeatedly failed to pass Congress.

As if these financial worries were not enough, he faced

others as well. While on his western exploring trips, Evans had

borrowed money to speculate on land. Beginning as early as

1853, he had purchased lots in Oregon City, a rapidly growing

political and trade center; and Albany, Oregon; and Olympia,

the capital of Washington Territory.78 Although Evans claimed

that he had borrowed the money to "pay off my men and the

other expenses," it is possible that his "other expenses"

included his land purchases. Most of the lots had been bought

during the Indian Wars, when there was a depression in the

value of property, and Evans had anticipated a handsome return

on his investments. But due to the recent discovery of gold in

the west and the resultant "mining mania," many persons were

now anxious to sell their property cheaply in order to raise

quick money to outfit expeditions. Property prices had gone

down, therefore, not up. There is evidence that the interest he

owed on his loans now amounted to $1,350, and was increasing

at a rate of three percent per month.79 Evans' financial situation

was obviously of very serious concern to him.

In February 1858, Evans wrote Meek that the "want of

funds ... to pay necessary expenses and to complete my report

render it necessary for me to raise money immediately."80 He

then revealed that he had bought two blocks of land in

Olympia, containing eight lots each, and offered to sell him a

block for $1,000. When Meek turned down this offer, Evans

asked him if he would loan him the $1,000 at two percent per

month, to be secured by a mortgage on the Olympia property.81

When this offer, too, was turned down, Evans felt he had no

option but to return to Oregon to raise money by selling some

of his property. Before leaving, he submitted his completed

Geological Survey to the General Land Office in May.82

Arriving in Oregon City in October 1858, he found the

situation even worse than he had feared. He estimated that his

holdings had decreased in value by more than 50%, and he was

able to sell only one lot. This meant that he now would have to

mortgage the Olympia property cheaply. In a letter to his wife,

he bleakly assessed his prospects: "Dear wife I have not very

strong hopes of success this winter before Congress. And if I

fail again shall be almost inextricably involved."83 The thought

of returning to Washington, D.C., and battling Congress for the

appropriation necessary to publish his report was so depressing

that he considered giving up the fight entirely: "My own

judgement is very decided that it would be for our future

interest to settle on this coast, both for ourselves and

children."84 He had ascertained that the office of Register of the

Land Office for Oregon was vacant, and urged his wife to get

all their friends "working together" to help him obtain it. Evans

was despondent, and had just about given up all hope. He

proceeded overland to San Francisco by way of Yreka, where

he hoped he could collect a debt owed him from an earlier cattle

sale, took a steamer to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed it, and

caught another steamer for the trip up the east coast.

By the time Evans had made his way back home to

Washington, D.C., in December, however, his outlook had

changed dramatically and he was surprisingly buoyant. He felt

"better prepared to 'wage war' with Congress" than ever

before. Moreover, "matters in other respects also look more

favorable."85 Evans did not give any reasons for this sudden

change in outlook, or specify what the "matters in other

respects" were. What he did mention, however, is that during

this trip (made entirely at his personal expense solely to raise

money by selling some of his property, some six to seven

months after the submission of his Geological Survey to the

General Land Office) he had "made some interesting additions"
NUMBER 31 15

to his geological collection.86 Indeed he had! It is my

contention that Evans had acquired a small but very rare piece

of meteorite, and had hatched a scheme whereby he could use

it to turn around his financial affairs and extricate himself from

the hole he was in.

Reconstruction of the Hoax

The first announcement of the meteoritic nature of the Port

Orford specimen was made to the Boston Society of Natural

History on 5 October 1859 by Charles T. Jackson. The very fact

that the analysis had been made by Jackson is virtual proof that

the specimen had not been collected during Evans' 1856

explorations in Oregon, as his journal's itinerary implies and

his letters claim, but during his 1858 trip. All of Evans'

geological specimens collected during his 1856 trip, as well as

his earlier ones, were analyzed by A. Litton.87 Litton had

completed his work by March, 1858.88 Seven months later,

while in Oregon, Evans learned that Litton's wife had died, and

that he would no longer be able to work for him: "Poor Dr.

Litton has lost his wife—his first love. He is almost broken

hearted and disconsolate and writes me that he has been wholly

unable to do any work-since."89 It was then, and only then, that

Evans turned to Jackson to analyze his newly acquired

specimens.90

It seemed totally inconceivable to me that Evans simply

could have made a mistake about something as recent and

fundamentally important to his story as the date of his

discovery of the meteorite. I therefore took this to be a

deliberate lie on his part. More than anything else, this led me

to suspect that his whole story was a hoax.

Evans' description of the huge 10-ton parent mass from

which he claimed he had broken off the Port Orford specimen

intrigued Jackson: "Dr. Evans assures me that the Oregon

meteorite is of large size & of great value to science." In

addition to its scientific value, Jackson alluded to the

meteorite's strong nationalistic and immense financial value:

I am afraid that if some measures are not taken by the U.S. Government to

secure this specimen that it will become a subject of private speculation on the

part of foreigners, for it is well known that rare meteorites sell for their weight

in gold in Europe.91

To prevent losing the meteorite to a European collector,

Jackson proposed that it be procured by the United States

Government. He went on to suggest that it should be placed in

the Smithsonian Institution, "where it properly belongs":

I have proposed the Smithsonian Institution as the place of deposit for this very

valuable meteorite in hopes that Congress will make an appropriation of the

money needed to place it there & also because I think the Smithsonian is at the

head of our meteorological institutions & should have charge of some of the

solid things which rain down from above.92

This suggestion played perfectly into a scheme that I believe

Evans was in the process of developing, and perhaps even gave

shape to it.

Joseph Henry, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,

however, saw its primary role as that of a research institution,

and was unwilling to commit its limited income to museum

development. For this reason, he made no effort to emulate the

meteorite-collecting activities of the European museums.

Whereas this undoubtedly meant that he would not consider

providing Smithsonian funds as an alternative to congressional

funding to retrieve the Port Orford meteorite, it did not mean

that he would refuse it if it were offered as a gift. It should be

noted that Henry did, in fact, do some collecting; under him the

Smithsonian acquired sundry collections from various Land

Office surveys and exploring expeditions, including many

objects from Evans himself. Furthermore, Henry did have an

interest in meteorites, as witnessed by the fact that he supported

research by J. Lawrence Smith on the meteorites in the mineral

collection bequeathed by the institution's benefactor, James

Smithson.93

While Jackson was busy analyzing the meteorite, sending off

a piece to Vienna for confirmation, and relaying letters from

Evans to the Boston Society of Natural History, Evans was also

busy. He played an active role in persuading various academies

to petition Congress to finance a recovery expedition, and

implored them to exert all the influence they could muster to

accomplish this goal:

It would aid materially in accomplishing the object in view to have copies of the

memorial sent to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. It

would also be well to send a copy to the Sees, of War & Interior Department

who have both been addressed by the Natural History Society of Boston, and by

Prof. [Alexander Dallas] Bache of the Coast Survey & Prof. [Joseph] Henry of

the Smithsonian Inst. It would also be well to address some members of

congress on the subject... who may be on friendly terms with some member of

your Society or be a lover of science.94

Unfortunately, Henry's correspondence in this regard was lost

in the 1865 fire at the Smithsonian that destroyed almost all of

its holdings; this prevents us from knowing the precise extent

of his support at this time. The feverish activity on Evans' part,

however, makes it abundantly clear how urgently he wanted

Congress to make an appropriation for the meteorite's

recovery.

Why was he so anxious to bring this about? Evans had by

now given up all hope that Congress would pass a $30,100

supplemental appropriation bill for the publication of his final

report: "The funds of the Government are so low that it is very

hard to obtain an appropriation for any purpose except the

current expenses of the Depts. and Congress."95 But he had

thought of a clever scheme whereby the meteorite could be

used to get around that.

Evans' plan is revealed in a letter to Leidy (Figure 1-6). After

FIGURE 1-6 (following pages).—Evans' letter to Joseph Leidy, 25 November

1859. This letter, in Evans' own handwriting, not only describes the meteorite,

its location, and the excitement it had already aroused, but also reveals his plan

for carrying out the hoax. By linking together the idea of a modest appropriation

to retrieve the meteorite with the much larger appropriation necessary for the

publication of his final report, Evans hoped he could slough off the latter as a

current expense. He had by now become so desperate to secure funds for this

that he vowed "we must leave no stone unturned."
16 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

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reminding him that Congress had not yet passed a resolution to

cover the expenses for the publication of his report, he pointed

out that

if a movement is made before the Annual estimates are sent in to Congress from

the Depts. it will only be necessary to add say $1000.00 to the amount called for

by me to accomplish the object in view [i.e., retrieve the meteorite].96

Evans hoped that his story about the meteorite would prove

so intriguing that Congress would make a modest appropriation

for its retrieval. Then, by linking together this expense with that

necessary for the publication of his final report, Evans hoped

that the publication expenses could be sloughed off as a current

rather than past expense. I propose that this was Evans' real

goal, and the reason behind his elaborate hoax. He saw this as

the only possible route to the recovery of his enormous $11,074

personal debt. Moreover, Evans had gone out on a limb

regarding the money owed his assistants, publicly saying he felt

"bound in honor" to pay them out of his own pocket if the

Government failed to furnish the funds.97 Therefore, it is not

difficult to understand why he so strongly felt that he "must

leave no stone unturned"98 in his efforts to interest Congress in

his plan to retrieve the meteorite.

But if Evans' plan succeeded, and Congress made the

appropriation, how could the hoax be carried off? As there was

no 10-ton meteorite on Bald Mountain, there was obviously

nothing for Evans to retrieve. It would not do to claim he

couldn't locate it, for he had asserted in his 1 May 1860 letter

to Jackson that "there cannot be the least difficulty in my

finding the meteorite." Some other reason would have to be

found.

Evans' letter to Leidy reveals that he had thought of possible

solutions to this problem. His original idea of retrieving the

entire meteorite might be "not practicable," he warned:

The object in view is, if possible, is [sic] to enable me to secure the whole

meteor, and if that is not practicable to secure large specimens for the different

Scientific Societies in the U.S. and Europe and to dig around and under the

meteor and make accurate drawings and measurements of the same."

But conceivably Evans could return with only these measurements and drawings, claiming that even the attempt to secure

large pieces had proved to be "not practicable."

Evans claimed to Leidy that Henry was willing to financially

support such a scheme:

The plan is to make every possible effort to induce Congress to make the

necessary appropriation; and if this should prove unsuccessful Professor Henry

is willing to advance his quota from the funds of the Smithsonian Institution.100

But the available evidence does not support this claim. In a

letter to Nevil Story-Maskelyne, Keeper of Minerals at the

British Museum (Natural History), Henry explained that he was

not in favor of urging the government to appropriate funds to

retrieve the entire meteorite: "I concluded that the advantage to

science would by no means compensate the expense of the

enterprise."101 Rather, he advised that the meteorite be dug up,

accurately measured and photographed so that an exact plaster

copy could be made, "and that specimens be procured which

might be presented to the principal museums of the world."

Although he concluded that "I think it probable that these

suggestions will in time be acted upon," he did not offer

Smithsonian funds to accomplish this end. Nevertheless,

Henry's letter does indicate that he was, in fact, interested in

receiving a specimen of the Port Orford meteorite for the

Smithsonian collections.

But Evans had also hit on another, and possibly better,

solution to his problem. Although he had stressed how visible

the meteorite was, because it was on a grassy slope that was

bare of timber and devoid of rocks in its immediate vicinity, his

letter raised the possibility that it might, in fact, no longer be

visible. The reason for this suggested itself to Evans in a totally

different context. In an agricultural report he wrote to the

General Land Office in November, 1859, he described how the

soil in the mountainous areas near the coast and between the

Cascade and Bitter Root Mountains was enriched by "the

vegetable matter brought down by the abundant rains and the

melting of snow in the spring."102 Writing to Leidy only four

days later, Evans cleverly turned this around to suit his own

purpose. Now, instead of enriching the soil, "the annual

accumulation of vegetable matter brought down by melting

snows and rain storms would tend materially to cover it [the

meteorite] up."103 Hence, by the time he returned to Oregon, the

meteorite might be entirely covered up, and therefore impossible to relocate. Thus armed, Evans must have felt that if

Congress made the appropriation, he was prepared. But

Congress repeatedly failed to make the necessary appropriation.

In June 1860, Evans sought and obtained appointment as

geologist accompanying a naval expedition to Chiriqui, on the

Isthmus of Panama, to ascertain the extent and value of coal

deposits there and the practicability of constructing a railroad

connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Evans' motivation,

however, was not to advance the cause of science or commerce,

but to advance his own cause: "This expedition will aid me

much in that body [the House of Representatives] by securing

the votes of the Administration Members who on several

occasions ... voted against" the supplemental appropriation

bill.104 But this tactic, like the meteorite hoax itself, did not get

a chance to succeed, for a few months after his return from

Chiriqui, Evans died in April 1861.

With Evans' death and the almost concurrent outbreak of the

Civil War, Congress turned its attention to far more pressing

matters. The Geological Survey of Oregon and Washington

Territories, which had been in the hands of the Public Printer at

the time of Evans' death, somehow fell out of sight, and

became irretrievably lost.105 Thus, the story of the Port Orford

meteorite became an intriguing enigma, eluding all who

attempted to solve the mystery of its disappearance.

Identity of the Port Orford Specimen

One of the most puzzling pieces in this story is the Port

Orford specimen itself. Unquestionably a genuine meteorite,
NUMBER 31 19

where did it really come from? And how did Evans acquire it?

Only three pallasites had been discovered in Evans' day:

Krasnojarsk (Siberia, 1749), Brahin (Belorussiya, 1810), and

Imilac (Chile, 1820-1822).106 I do not include Anderson

(United States, prehistoric) because it was not found until 1882.

The Anderson specimen, which was found in the Turner

Mounds in Little Miami Valley, Ohio, is actually a transported

piece of Brenham (Kiowa County, Kansas). Gran Chaco

(Argentina, 1811) is not included because it now is considered

to be an Imilac specimen. It just happened that a transported

piece from the Imilac shower was the first specimen of that

meteorite to be found. Of the three contemporary pallasites,

only two had specimens that were widely distributed, and

hence could have been accessible to Evans: Krasnojarsk and

Imilac.

It is my contention that the Port Orford fragment is a piece of

Imilac, and that Evans acquired it in the fall of 1858 while

crossing the Isthmus of Panama on his final return trip from

Oregon. Henderson suggested to me that the Port Orford

specimen might have originated from South America, and that

Evans could have picked it up there en route to or from

Oregon.107 But there is no evidence that Evans had ever been in

South America. Nor would there have been any need for him to

have been; he quite simply could have acquired his specimen

while crossing the Isthmus of Panama.

Evans' dramatic change of mood at precisely that time, his

assertion that matters in other respects now looked more

favorable, and his acknowledgment that he had added

"interesting" specimens to his geological collection, suggest

that he acquired the meteorite between the time he left Oregon

and the time he returned to Washington, D.C. It would have

been possible, of course, for him to have acquired it in San

Francisco, in any of the ports of call on either the west or east

coast, or in Washington, D.C. But it is probable that most

Imilac specimens passed through the Panama area on their way

to various museums and collectors in North America and

Europe.

The major trading post for South American goods in the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries was at the Isthmus of Panama, the quickest and safest

seafaring route to Europe and North America. Sugar, fruit, minerals, cloth, and

dozens of other products passed through the Isthmus on their way to market.108

For this reason, it is much more likely that Evans acquired his

curio-size specimen there rather than anywhere else.

The Imilac meteorite was discovered sometime around

1820-1822 by two Indians hunting guanacos in the Atacama

Desert in Chile (Figure 1-7). At first mistaken for silver, it soon

was recognized to be a meteorite, and a specimen was sent to

the British Museum in 1827.109 In his comprehensive Handbook of Iron Meteorites, Vagn F. Buchwald alludes to the fact

that

in the second quarter of the nineteenth century many of the [meteorite's]

fragments were carried in small portions by Indians to Peruvian, Bolivian,

Chilean, and Argentinean coast towns from where they were slowly spread to

a surprisingly large number of public museums and private collectors.110

Within only a few years of its discovery, fragments had found

their way to at least twenty museums and a similar number of

private collectors.111

Even after this widespread distribution, thousands of

fragments still remained at the site. In 1854, R.A. Philippi, who

had been commissioned by the Chilean government to

investigate the botany and geology of the Atacama Desert,

happened to meet one of the original finders of the meteorite,

who guided him to the location of the strewnfield. Within a few

hours he and his party collected about 1500 fragments, and

estimated that an equal amount probably remained there

unseen.112 In fact, because of its extremely fragmentary

character, Imilac "is no doubt the most commonly represented

pallasite in collections."113

Any attempt to positively pair the Port Orford specimen with

an Imilac specimen is fraught with difficulties. My conclusion,

reached from a study of the available literature, is based on

comparisons of the overall physical appearance, degree of

weathering, and detailed chemical composition of the two

meteorites. Henderson described the Port Orford as "a sponge

like piece of iron with bright, fresh olivine attached to the

skeleton structure of iron," containing depressions in which the

olivine crystals were no longer present.114 Buchwald, who

visited the Imilac site in 1973, mapped the strewnfield, and

collected some 2430 small fragments, described a large portion

of them as "irregular spongy metal skeletons." Although the

olivine crystals were mostly lost from his samples, those that

were present were quite fresh, exhibiting a yellowish white to

greenish yellow color.115 Moreover, the form of the olivine

crystals in the two pallasites is virtually indistinguishable.116

Both the Port Orford and some Imilac fragments exhibit

extremely little weathering. The Port Orford's fresh black

fusion crust led Henderson to conclude that it must be a

relatively recent fall.117 In contrast to ultramoist western

Oregon, the Atacama Desert is extremely arid, averaging under

5 mm precipitation annually. Indeed, Buchwald described the

area as "belong[ing] to the most arid in the world. ...It is

remarkable that samples collected in 1973 look almost exactly

like samples recovered about 1823, 150 years ago."118

Although none of the specimens that Buchwald examined

exhibited fusion crust, he nevertheless believed that

"many... have lost only little by corrosion." This view

undoubtedly reflected the understanding of the situation in the

mid-1970s.119 Moreover, Philippi described the surfaces of the

small specimens he found in 1854 as "very black."120 And the

Smithsonian "received a recently found Imilac specimen a little

over 10 years ago that has well preserved fusion crust as is

observed on the Port Orford specimen."121 This specimen

provided the first concrete evidence that some Imilac specimens are fusion crusted. It is also worth noting that the main

portion of the Ilimaes mass, in the mineral collection of the

School of Mines, Copiapo, Chile, also is covered by a thick

black fusion crust.122 The relevance of this meteorite will be

discussed below.

The most comprehensive chemical analysis of pallasites was
20 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

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FIGURE 1 -7.—The map of the Atacama Desert, Chile, which accompanied L. Fletcher' s article "On the Meteorites

which Have Been Found in the Desert of Atacama and its Neighbourhood." Imilac, some 120 miles east of

Antofagasta, is clearly marked on the route described by R.A. Philippi. Although Ilimaes is not marked on this

map, the meteorite bearing this name was found somewhere in the region between Chanaral and Juncal, about 170

miles south of Imilac. From The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society, October

1889.
NUMBER 31 21

conducted by Andrew Davis, who undertook a systematic study

of trace element abundances for his 1977 doctoral dissertation

at Yale University. Some of his pertinent data for the Port

Orford, Imilac, and Ilimaes meteorites is summarized in Table

i_j 123 jhg comparison between Port Orford and Imilac shows

that the Ga and the Ir contents of the two meteorites are quite

similar, but that Port Orford has a somewhat higher Ni and a

lower Ge content than Imilac.

The crucial question, of course, is how significant are these

differences? One way to assess this is to compare these

differences against those between Imilac and Ilimaes.124

Ilimaes is a pallasite that also was found in the Atacama Desert

in Chile, about 50 years after Imilac was found, and about 170

miles to the south (Figure 1-7). Meteoriticists consider them a

true pair, i.e., as being part of the same fall. Although Imilac

and Ilimaes were listed as independent entities in the British

Museum (Natural History) Catalogue of Meteorites 3rd

edition, they were listed as a pair in the 4th.125 This comparison

shows a very close agreement in the Ga content and only a

small difference in the Ni content of the meteorites, but a

somewhat larger difference in the Ge and a very large

difference in the Ir contents.

As early as 1889, L. Fletcher, Keeper of Minerals in the

British Museum (Natural History), pointed out that the name

Ilimaes, which is neither Indian nor Spanish, could not be

found on any maps, and speculated that "it is far from

impossible that the name is a mere misspelling of Imilae, which

is itself another version ... of Imilac."126 Buchwald agreed with

this. His comparisons of the two meteorites convinced him that

"since the two pallasites are similar in all essential respects ... the Ilimaes mass must be a transported [piece of

Imilac] mass."127 In fact, more than a dozen pallasites, all found

within a 200-mile radius of Imilac, are regarded by Buchwald

as being transported pieces of Imilac.128 These pairings help

explain the mystery of how there could be so many apparently

different falls of a very rare type of meteorite in such a

relatively small area. Furthermore, it is worth noting that these

falls were not found at random places in the Atacama Desert,

but along well-established desert trails:

Nearly all the Atacama masses of known locality have been found on or near

the desert tracks; in a certain measure this is due to the country having been

there most easily explored, but in some cases it is doubtless a result either of

loss during transport or of rejection of the specimens after discovery that they

contained no silver.129

This lends further support to Buchwald's contention, which has

been accepted by nearly all meteoriticists.130 Davis, however,

has interpreted his data to indicate that the various Atacama

pallasites are in fact independent falls.131

On the whole, the differences in chemical composition

between the Imilac and Ilimaes meteorites are of strikingly

similar magnitude to the differences between Port Orford and

Ilimaes. In fact, with the exception of the large difference in its

TABLE 1-1.—Selected chemical compositions for Port Orford, Imilac, and

Ilimaes metal in order of decreasing percent Ni content Data from Davis, 1977,

doctoral dissertation, Yale University.

Pallasite

Port Orford

Ilimaes

Imilac

Gappm Geppm Irppb

11.3

10.4

9.6

21.2

22.4

23.1

34.1

39.9

48.3

82.1

112.0

80.9

Ir content, Ilimaes falls almost perfectly midway between Port

Orford and Imilac (Table 1-1).

Does this mean that if Imilac and Ilimaes are considered a

true pair, so too can Port Orford and Ilimaes, and by extension,

Port Orford and Imilac? In considering this, it should be kept in

mind that some variations are to be expected in as large a body

as the parent Imilac meteorite. It is well known, for example,

that whereas most specimens of Brenham are typical pallasites,

some show large patches of pure nickel-iron, more representative of the iron meteorites.132

At the present time, there cannot be a definitive positive

pairing. As the Smithsonian's Roy S. Clarke, Jr., points out:

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to be certain whether the two specimens

[Port Orford and Imilac] are from the same or from different falls. Many

pallasites have very similar properties. There are several papers that suggest on

the basis of chemical data that the two are not from the same fall, but I am not

convinced that this work is necessarily conclusive.133

I am, nevertheless, satisfied that on the basis of comparisons of

physical appearance, degree of weathering, and chemical

composition of the two meteorites, there is sufficient support

for my contention that the Port Orford specimen acquired by

Evans is, in fact, a piece of Imilac.

Conclusion

John Evans was a happy and carefree explorer in the early

days of his field work. During his second trip to Oregon in

1853, for example, he playfully wrote his wife:

I am the most unlucky fellow in the world! The Indians will not scalp me, not

even see me; the grizzly bears run away at my approach; the contrary mule,

even, will not throw me over his head, and break my neck; I cannot get lost and

wander for weeks in the Mountains; the rivers will not drown me & I have had

no opportunity to describe a prairie fire! Poor miserable dog—not an adventure

to relate!134

During these early adventurous exploring trips, Evans did a

good job of spying out the land, finding new mountain passes

and charting river courses, describing the natural resources, and

acquainting others with the vast and complex western terrain.

The fossil and mineralogical samples he collected on these trips

and sent to specialists for analysis provided at least a beginning

for a natural history survey of the Pacific Northwest. But Evans

himself had no formal training in the disciplines he served, and
22 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

his knowledge of these fields was cursory at best. Perhaps this

can help explain both the disappointing nature of his field work

and his unprofessional scientific behavior.

It is clear that his severe financial difficulties and his long,

frustrating battle with Congress weighed heavily on him, and

took their toll. Increasingly, he found that "the cares and

perplexities of business before Congress ... occupied almost

every moment" of his time. Moreover, he found "the slavery of

being obliged to bend to insolent officials" intolerable.135 As a

result, his outlook changed, leading him to confess that "much

of the fire of youthful hope has been lost in the bitter waters of

experience."136 His acquisition of a small piece of meteorite in

1858 must have seemed, literally, a heaven-sent way out of his

difficulties. It is my contention that in a clever scheme, he used

it in a last-ditch attempt to extricate himself from his desperate

situation.

I believe Evans chose Oregon as the site of his alleged find

for two reasons. In the first place, the idea of mounting a new

expedition there to retrieve the meteorite was the key to his

scheme to get Congress to pass an appropriation that would

wipe out his enormous personal debt. And secondly, he wished

to go there, at Congress' expense, to check on his real estate

holdings. Specifically, he chose Bald Mountain because that

was the most memorable part of his trip. Not only was it the

highest point on his route from Port Orford across the Rogue

River Mountains, but the view from its summit was unforgettably spectacular. Nearly a week after crossing its summit, he had

occasion to recall the scene from there:

If the traveller will notice the valley of the Umpqua from some high summit in

the Calapooya Mountains he will form a pretty good idea of a scene we

witnessed from Bald Mountains [sic]... a valley of mountains covered with

timber, occasionally a peak rising sharp and angular against the sky in bold

outline. Around this valley of mountains is a higher range of singular grandure;

here and there dotted over the lesser elevations are small mountain prairies

covered with luxuriant grass, and in some intervening glens lovely little prairies

of rich mellow soil

 137

The memory of this beautiful scene remained firmly implanted

in his mind years later. Moreover, as his "Descriptive

Catalogue of Geological Specimens" shows, he had made

collections of rock samples there, so his story would make

sense logically (Figure 1-4).

My reconstruction of Evans' hoax explains all of the puzzles

connected with the story of the lost Port Orford meteorite,

especially why no mention of its discovery was made in Evans'

journal or his "Descriptive Catalogue," and why it has not been

possible to relocate the meteorite. Evans' unfamiliarity with

meteorites undoubtedly accounted for his inability to realize

how difficult it would have been to either hammer a piece off

the Port Orford meteorite or to cut it up into several pieces, as

he at one point had suggested. This unfamiliarity could also

account for his claim for the meteorite's inordinately large size.

The indications that he acquired it in 1858, and not in 1856, as

he maintained, explain what otherwise would have been a

mysterious three-year delay between the time of its discovery

and that of its analysis by Jackson. And if Evans' specimen is

a piece of Imilac, as I contend, this would explain its fusion

crust and fresh appearance. Finally, if indeed he had acquired

the specimen on the Isthmus of Panama, as I believe, this might

have constituted another reason why he wished to return there

in 1860.

It seems highly unlikely that Evans, had he not died in 1861,

would have succeeded in his attempt to have the government

appropriate funds to retrieve the meteorite in order to place it in

the Smithsonian Institution. Only a month before Evans' death,

Henry estimated that it would cost $20,000 to transport the

meteorite.138 Neither Evans, Jackson, Henry, nor anyone else

could have persuaded Congress to fund such a large amount,

especially at a time when civil war seemed imminent. Evans'

hoax, conceived in desperation and brilliant in execution, was

doomed by the events of his day. The firing on Fort Sumter

sounded its death knell, as it happened to sound Evans' the

following day.

Notes

'Charles T. Jackson, in the minutes of a meeting, Proceedings of the Boston

Society of Natural History, 7(1861), page 161.

2W.K. Haidinger, "Einige neuere Nachrichten uber Meteoriten, namentlich

die von Bokkeveld, New-Concord, Trenzano, die Meteoreisen von Nebraska,

von Brazos, von Oregon," Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse Sitzungsberichte, 41(1860), pages 568-

572.

3

For more on pallasites, especially on their early history, see further Vagn

F. Buchwald and Roy S. Clarke, Jr., "A Mystery Solved: The Port Orford

Meteorite is an Imilac Specimen." In Roy S. Clarke, Jr., editor, "The Port

Orford, Oregon, Meteorite Mystery," Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth

Sciences, 31, pages 25-43.

4

John Evans to Jackson, 1 May 1860. Quoted in Charles T. Jackson, "A

Sketch of the Life and Scientific Services of John Evans, M.D., U.S. Geologist

for Oregon and Washington Territories, and the U.S. Chiriqui Exploring

Expedition," American Journal of Science, 2nd series, 32(1861), page 313.

5

Ibid.

^The "Memorial to Congress from the Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia"

is reprinted in "Report to Accompany Bill S. 149," 36th Congress, 1st Session,

S. Rept. 177, page 19. Serial 1039.

7

Jackson, "Sketch," page 315.

8

Ibid, page 317.

'Richard X. Evans, "Dr. John Evans, U.S. Geologist, 1851-1861," The

Washington Historical Quarterly, 26(1935), page 89.

10The journal is in the John Evans Papers, Record Unit 7198, Smithsonian

Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.

UW.F. Foshag to George P. Merrill, Head Curator, Department of Geology,

Smithsonian Institution, 16 July 1929, George P. Merrill Collection, Record

Unit 7177, Box 17, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. This

collection will hereafter be referred to as Merrill Collection. I thank Roy S.

Clarke, Jr., for calling my attention to this letter. See further Buchwald and

Clarke, "A Mystery Solved."

12J.H. Pruett, "Treasure for the Finding: Oregon's Lost Meteor [sic]," The

Sunday Oregonian, 21 November 1937, page 9.

13See E.P. Henderson to Alexander Wetmore, Assistant Secretary of the

Smithsonian Institution, 10 and 17 June 1939, Registrar, 1834-1958,

Accession Records, Record Unit 305, Accession no. 151638, Smithsonian

Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.

14Hollis M. Dole to George J. Hohnstein, 25 November 1964.1 am indebted
NUMBER 31 23

to Richard Pugh for providing me with copies of this and other letters from the

late Erwin F. Lange's file on the Port Orford meteorite. This file will hereafter

be referred to as Lange File.

15E.P. Henderson and Hollis M. Dole, "The Port Orford Meteorite," The Ore

Bin, 26(1964), page 120.

16Ibid.

17Evans to Joseph S. Wilson, Commissioner of the General Land Office, 24

August 1860, Records of the General Land Office, Record Group 49, National

Archives, Washington, D.C. These records will hereafter be referred to as RG

49.

18Ellen C. Sedell, "The Lost Port Orford Meteorite," Oregon Historical

Quarterly, 69(1968), page 37.

19Ibid, page 32.

20The Smithsonian houses the main mass of the Port Orford meteorite

(Accession no. 64916). Originally weighing 25 g, small amounts of material

have been removed from it for study, and its current weight is now 17.7 g. The

only other specimens of this meteorite are in the Naturhistorisches Museum

Wien in Vienna (3.5 g), the Arizona State University's Collection of Meteorites

in Tempe (0.9 g), The Natural History Museum, London (0.5 g), and the India

Geological Survey's Collection in Calcutta (0.2 g). For more on these

specimens, see further Buchwald and Clarke, "A Mystery Solved."

21Henderson and Dole, "The Port Orford Meteorite," page 116.

22Henderson to George J. Hohnstein, 1 December 1964, Lange File.

23Dole to Henderson, 4 December 1964, Lange File.

24Sedell, "The Lost Port Orford Meteorite," pages 33, 36.

25Erwin F. Lange, "Dr. John Evans, U.S. Geologist to the Oregon and

Washington Territories," proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,

103(1959), page 484.

26Roy S. Clarke, Jr., personal communication to the author, 8 December

1986.

27Evans' "Descriptive Catalogue of Geological Specimens Collected in

Oregon and Washington Territory" is in Record Unit 305, Box 5 for 1857,

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.

28Jackson, "Sketch," page 315, note.

29Brian Mason, "The Pallasites," American Museum Novitates, 2163(1963),

page 2, table 1.

30Vagn F. Buchwald, Handbook of Iron Meteorites, Their History,

Distribution, Composition and Structure (Berkeley, 1975), volume 1, page 38,

table 20.

31Ibid, page 35, table 18. See also Ellis Peck, "The Fate of a Kansas Meteorite

Crater," Sky and Telescope, 58(1979), page 128. I thank Douglas Borgard for

calling my attention to this article.

32A.L. Graham et al., Catalogue of Meteorites, with Special Reference to

Those Represented in the Collection of the British Museum (Natural History),

4th edition (London, 1985), page 171.

33Evans to Joseph Leidy, 25 November 1859, Joseph Leidy Papers, Academy

of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These papers will hereafter be

referred to as Leidy Papers.

^Jackson, "Sketch," page 313.

35The fact that Bald Mountain was the highest point on Evans' journey is

mentioned in his "Descriptive Catalogue," page 15.

36Quoted in Jackson, "Sketch," page 314.

"Evans to Jackson, 1 May 1860. Quoted in Jackson, "Sketch," pages 313,

314. For a convincing discussion of why the river mentioned cannot be the

Sixes River, see Lincoln LaPaz, "Contribution 5: The Evans Meteorite." In

Lincoln LaPaz, editor, "Topics in Meteoritics: Their Recovery, Use, and Abuse

from Paleolithic to Present." University of New Mexico Publications in

Meteorites, number 6 (Albuquerque, 1969), pages 113, 114. LaPaz was the

Director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico.

38Ibid.

39Lewis A. McArthur, Oregon Geographic Names, 3rd edition (Portland,

Oregon, 1965), page 30, entry for "Bald Mountain."

40The journal quotations are from Evans' "Route from Port Orford Across the

Rogue River Mountains."

41McArthur, page 329, entry for "Johnson Mountain." For an extensive

account of the early mines worked there, see J.S. Diller, Geologic Atlas of the

United States, Port Orford Folio, Oregon (Washington, D.C, 1903), pages

5,6.

42Foshag to George P. Merrill, 4 July 1929, Merrill Collection. I thank Roy

S. Clarke, Jr., for calling my attention to this letter.

43See further S. Breiner, Applications Manual for Portable Magnetometers

(Sunnyvale, California, 1973), page 3.

^Ibid, page 43, figure 46.

45The old trails are delineated in Diller, Port Orford Folio, "Topographic

Sheet." They are also discussed and shown in the notes and plats accompanying

the 1876 and 1910 Bureau of Land Management surveys of the area (T.32S.,

R.12W).

^For more on this mine, see Len Ramp, "Chromite in Southwestern

Oregon." State of Oregon, Department of Geology and Mineral Industries,

Bulletin Number 52 (Portland, 1961), page 112.

47See further H.E. Hawkes, "Magnetic Exploration for Chromite." Geological Survey Bulletin 973-A (Washington, D.C, 1951), pages 1-3.

48Douglas Borgard, personal conversation with the author.

49This fear was voiced in Evans' letter to Joseph Leidy, 25 November 1859,

Leidy Papers.

50Details of Evans' early life are from Jackson, "Sketch"; Lange, "Dr. John

Evans"; and Richard X. Evans, "Dr. John Evans."

51A. Litton to Evans, 12 March 1854, Richard X. Evans Collection, Special

Collections Division, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.

52George P. Merrill, "Contributions to the History of American Geology."

Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum,

1904 (Washington, D.C, 1906), page 413.

"Ibid., page 585.

54I.I. Stevens to Evans, 11 April 1853, "Pacific Railroad Survey," Isaac

Ingalls Stevens Papers, Box 5, Folder 30, University of Washington Library,

Seattle, Washington. These papers will hereafter be referred to as Stevens

Papers.

"Stevens to Evans, 22 April 1853, Stevens Papers, Box 5, Folder 30.

56William H. Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, The Explorer and the

Scientist in the Winning of the American West (New York, 1960), page 491. For

more on this affair, see F.V. Hayden to James Hall, 16 May 1853 and F.B.

Meek to James Hall, 19 May 1853. Quoted in George P. Merrill, The First One

Hundred Years of American Geology (New York, 1964), pages 697-699. Hall,

a geologist at the Rensselaer Polytecnic Institute, was a prominent New York

State geologist and paleontologist

"Meek to James Hall, 7 June 1853. Quoted in Merrill, First One Hundred

Years, page 706.

58Ibid.

59J. Leidy to F.V. Hayden, 18 July 1855. Quoted in Nathan Reingold, Science

in Nineteenth-Century America, a Documentary History, (New York, 1964),

page 176.

^I.I. Stevens, "Report of Explorations for a Route for the Pacific Railroad

Near the Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth Parallels of North Latitude, from St.

Paul to Puget Sound," in 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, House Executive

Document 91, volume 1, pages 230, 282. Serial 791.

61Evans to A.A. Humphreys, Corps of Topographical Engineers, 14 February

1855, Records of the Office of Explorations and Surveys, Record Group 48,

National Archives, Washington, D.C. These records will hereafter be referred

to as RG 48. Humphreys was in charge of the Pacific Railroad Survey Office.

62Stevens to Evans, 11 April 1853, Stevens Papers, Box 5, Folder 30.

63Evans' "Directions for the Mineralogical and Geological Examinations"

are in Stevens, "Report of Explorations," pages 12,13.

MEvans to Thomas A. Hendricks, Commissioner of the General Land Office,

16 February 1857, RG 49.

65Ibid.

66Merrill, First One Hundred Years, page 319.

67J. Butterfield to Evans, March 1851, RG 49.

68Evans to Butterfield, 8 March 1851, RG 49.
24 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

69Butterfield to Evans, March 1851, RG 49.

70Evans to Butterfield, July 1851, RG 49.

71Evans to Butterfield, 4 August 1852, RG 49.

72"Memorandum of the Results of the Geological Survey of Oregon and

Washington Territories, and the Circumstances Attending its Institution and

Progress, from Official Sources," in "Report to Accompany Bill S. 149," page

17.

"Evans to Hendricks, 16 February 1857, RG 49.

74"Memorandum," page 18.

75Evans, "Memorandum, General Results of the Geological Survey of

Oregon and Washington Territories" [November 1857], RG 49.

76Evans to Hendricks, 24 October 1857, RG 49.

77"Extract from the Annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land

Office to the Secretary of the Interior, dated November 30, 1857," in

"Memorandum," page 7.

78See Erwin F. Lange to Paul C. Musselman, 9 October 1964, Lange Papers;

a copy of a deed of sale dated 3 September 1856, ibid; and Evans to F.B. Meek,

19 February 1858, Fielding B. Meek Papers, Record Unit 7062, Box 2, Folder

14, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. These papers will

hereafter be referred to as Meek Papers. Musselman, an osteopath from Stella,

Missouri, unearthed many previously unknown documents in his attempt to

solve the Port Orford meteorite mystery.

79Evans to Hendricks, 16 February 1857, RG 49.

80Evans to Meek, 19 February 1958, Meek Papers, Box 2, Folder 14.

81Evans to Meek, 22 February 1858, Meek Papers, Box 2, Folder 14.

82Evans to Hendricks, 5 May 1858, RG 49.

83Evans to Sarah Z. Evans, 3 October 1858, David Bushnell Papers, College

of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. These papers will hereafter be

referred to as Bushnell Papers.

^Ibid.

85Evans to Leidy, 7 December 1858, Leidy Papers.

86Ibid.

87Evans to Hendricks, 28 November 1856, RG 49.

88Evans to Hendricks, 26 March 1858, RG 49.

89Evans to Sarah Z. Evans, 3 October 1858, Bushnell Papers.

90This is further corroborated in Evans to Jackson, 20 February 1860, Lange

Papers.

91

 Jackson to A.D. Bache, 28 December 1859, Alexander Dallas Bache

Papers, Microfilm Edition, Reel number 2, Library of Congress, Washington,

D.C. Bache, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, was one of the greatest

American scientific promoters, organizers, and administrators of his generation. For more on meteorite collectors in the nineteenth century, see John G.

Burke, Cosmic Debris, Meteorites in History (Berkeley, 1986), chapter 6,

"Curators and Collectors," pages 174-212.

^Ibid.

93Brian Mason, "Mineral Sciences in the Smithsonian Institution." In George

S. Switzer, editor, "Mineral Sciences Investigations, 1972-1973," Smithsonian

Contributions to the Earth Sciences, 14(1975), page 2; Burke, page 201.

^Evans to Thomas Stewardson, Corresponding Secretary of the Academy of

Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 4 February 1860, Association of American

Geologists and Naturalists Papers, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania.

95Evans to Leidy, 25 November 1859, Leidy Papers.

^Ibid.

97Evans to Joseph S. Wilson, 21 November 1859, RG 49.

98Evans to Leidy, 25 November 1859, Leidy Papers.

"Ibid.

100Ibid.

101J. Henry to N. Story-Maskelyne, 11 March 1861, Joseph Henry Papers,

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.

102Evans to S.A. Smith, Commissioner of the General Land Office, 21

November 1859, RG 49.

I03Evans to Leidy, 25 November 1859, Leidy Papers.

104Evans to Jackson, 30 August 1860, Lange Papers.

105For efforts to find this missing Geological Survey, see Sedell, "The Lost

Port Orford Meteorite," pages 42-45, and LaPaz, Topics in Meteoritics, pages

136-138.

106See further Mason, "Pallasites," page 2, table 1, and Buchwald and Clarke,

"A Mystery Solved."

107E.P. Henderson, personal conversation with the author, 23 July 1986.

108Tom Miller, The Panama Hat Trail: A Journey from South America (New

York, 1986), page 15.

109L. Fletcher, "On the Meteorites which Have Been Found in the Desert of

Atacama and its Neighbourhood," The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of

the Mineralogical Society, 8(1889), page 253.

noBuchwald, Handbook, volume 3, page 1393.

111

 For a listing of these, see Otto Buchner, Die Meteoriten in Sammlungen

(Leipzig, 1863), page 127.

112Fletcher, "On Meteorites Found in the Desert of Atacama," page 249.

113Buchwald, Handbook, volume 3, page 1396.

114E.P. Henderson to Lincoln LaPaz, 3 December 1941. Quoted in LaPaz,

Topics in Meteoritics, page 125.

115Buchwald, Handbook, volume 3, page 1398.

116Carleton B. Moore, personal communication to the author, 24 September

1986. See also Peter R. Buseck, "Pallasite Meteorites: Mineralogy, Petrology

and Geochemistry," Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 41(1977), page 723,

table 1.

1

 "Henderson to LaPaz, 3 December 1941.

118Buchwald, Handbook, volume 3, page 1400.

119Ibid, page 1398.

120R.A. Philippi, "Meteoric Iron of Atacama," The U.S. Naval Astronomical

Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere during the Years 1849-50, 51, 52

(Washington, D.C, 1855), volume 2, page 288.

121Roy S. Clarke, Jr., personal communication to the author, 8 December

1986.

122See Henry A. Ward, "Three New Chilian Meteorites," Proceedings of the

Rochester Academy of Science, 4(1906), page 226.

123Andrew Davis, "The Cosmochemical History of the Pallasites" (doctoral

dissertation, Yale University, 1977), pages 77-79.

124Ibid.

125Compare Max H. Hey, Catalogue of Meteorites with Special Reference to

Those Represented in the Collection of the British Museum (Natural History),

3rd edition (London, 1966), page 211, entry for "Ilimaes" with A.L. Graham et

al., Catalogue of Meteorites, 4th edition (London, 1985), page 174, entries for

"Ilimaes" and "Imilac."

126Fletcher, "On Meteorites Found in the Desert of Atacama," page 260.

127Buchwald, Handbook, volume 3, page 1394.

128Ibid, page 1399.

129Fletcher, "On Meteorites Found in the Desert of Atacama," page 234.

130See, e.g., Edward R.D. Scott, "Pallasites: Metal Composition, Classification and Relationships with Iron Meteorites," Geochimica et Cosmochimica

Acta, 41(1977), page 352 and A.L. Graham et al., Catalogue of Meteorites,

page 174.

131Davis, "The Cosmochemical History of the Pallasites," pages 269,270.

132Mason, "Pallasites," page 4.

133Roy S. Clarke, Jr., personal communication to the author, 8 December

1986. How subsequent studies led Buchwald and Clarke to the conviction that

Port Orford and Imilac are indeed from the same fall is the central theme of their

paper "A Mystery Solved."

134Evans to Sarah Z. Evans, 19 October 1853, Bushnell Papers.

135Evans to Sarah Z. Evans, 26 April 1855, John Evans Papers, Library of

Congress, Washington, D.C.

136Evans to [A.A. Humphreys?], 9 February 1855, RG 48.

I37Evans, "Route from Port Orford Across the Rogue River Mountains,"

entry for 27 July 1856.

138Burke, Cosmic Debris, page 202.
2. A Mystery Solved: The Port Orford Meteorite

is an Imilac Specimen

Vagn F. Buchwald and Roy S. Clarke, Jr.

Introduction

For decades it has been the lot of Smithsonian Institution

meteorite curators to receive large numbers of inquiries about

the Port Orford meteorite. Does this legendary 10-ton pallasite

that John Evans (1812-1861) allegedly found in 1856 high on

a mountainside overlooking Oregon's Pacific Coast really

exist, and what information can you give me to help me find it?

Is it true that the Smithsonian Institution will pay $2,000,000

for its recovery? These and related questions have been asked

of us, of other U.S. Government officials, and of state and local

officials for much of this century. Curators, archivists, and

librarians in Washington, D.C., have answered hundreds of

letters and phone calls, and many visitors have talked with staff

members, consulted related documents, and have been shown

the Port Orford meteorite specimen. Officials in Oregon have

had to cope with hundreds of treasure hunters drawn to the area

by fanciful journalistic accounts but ill-prepared for the rigors

of meteorite searching in the inaccessible Siskiyou National

Forest.

The Port Orford story began to unfold in 1859 at meetings of

the Boston Society of Natural History. Chemist Charles T.

Jackson (1805-1880) announced receiving for analysis several

mineralogical specimens from John Evans, a United States

Government contract geologist-explorer of the Northwest.

Jackson immediately recognized one small specimen as a

pallasite meteorite (Jackson, 1860). Details of the find in the

mountains near the coastal settlement of Port Orford, in the

Coos Bay region of southwestern Oregon were revealed over

several months in exchanges of letters between Evans and

Jackson (Jackson, 1861). These reports led to a generally

accepted view that Jackson's small meteorite specimen had

been removed by Evans from a 10-ton pallasite, and that Evans

could easily relocate the mass. Efforts to raise the funds to

retrieve it for the Smithsonian Institution were initiated with

Vagn F. Buchwald, Department of Metallurgy, Technical University of

Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark. Roy S. Clarke, Jr., Division of

Meteorites, Department of Mineral Sciences, National Museum of

Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560.

surprising speed (Plotkin, 1992; Burke, 1986:202), made good

progress for a period, but languished due to Evans' untimely

death and the onset of the Civil War. The story was revived in

the early part of this century and captured the public's

imagination.

The published accounts of some of the more serious writers

clearly support Evans' discovery and present him as a

well-prepared scientist of impeccable character (Jackson, 1861;

Lange,1 1959; Sedell, 1968). The small specimen, which Evans

used to demonstrate that he had found a large meteoritic mass

in the then remote Oregon Territory, came to the Smithsonian

meteorite collection from the Boston Society of Natural History

in 1920. It is certainly a legitimate meteorite, and there is every

reason to believe that it is the same specimen that Evans sent to

Jackson.

From the point of view of the Smithsonian curators,

however, the discovery story proved hard to live with as it left

nagging questions unanswered. Documentation previously

accessible to us contained no firsthand account of the actual

find, and the fragments of Evans' journal that survive and cover

the period during which the meteorite was allegedly discovered

do not mention the meteorite. This led to confusion when

attempts were made to retrace Evans' route in order to relocate

it. It also seemed unreasonable that a well-grounded and

experienced scientific explorer of the late 1850s would find

such a giant meteorite and not thoroughly document and

announce the discovery. A 10-ton pallasite is a truly exotic

specimen, both in the sense of being introduced from afar and

of being excitingly different. How could such a discovery have

escaped being immediately proclaimed?

A brief excursion into Smithsonian records demonstrates the

seriousness with which the National Museum of Natural

History viewed the story and indicates that efforts were made

during a period of limited resources to get at the truth. Curator

William F. Foshag made the first Smithsonian attempt to locate

the lost 10-ton mass, and his visit to the Siskiyou National

Forest was conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Forest

Service. In a letter of 4 July 1929 written from Gold Beach,

Oregon, Foshag reported to aging Head Curator George P.

25
26 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

Merrill in Washington, D.C.:

I have delayed in writing you in the hope I might have soon good news to

impart but since we have now just returned from Iron Mountain I can only

report the Evans meteorite is still lost. I feel reasonably sure it is not on Iron

Mountain and now feel inclined to believe that Johnson Mountain is the place.

Lack of time and funds prevented us from searching this latter place.

From information gathered from old residents and from the lay of the land I

believe I can now trace quite accurately the exact trails over which Evans

travelled and believe another attempt would have a reasonable chance to suceed

[sic].

The country is mountainous and accessible only by pack train. The greatest

difficulty is that the old grassy slopes have, under forest protection, been

reclaimed by brush and timber. The old trails, however, are still being travelled

and I feel reasonably certain that Evans never left the trail for any great distance

and still make the daily mileage he reports. I will outline for future reference all

information I have gathered in my official report.

We scoured Iron Mountain from one end to the other, going over those slopes

that may once have been grassy and free of boulders in great detail.2

Unfortunately, Foshag's official report, which other records

extant refer to, is no longer retrievable.

Merrill responded in a letter of 9 July 1929 directed to

Foshag in Santa Monica, California:

I am of course sorry you did not find the meteorite, but am not surprised as I do

not and never have believed it to be on Iron Mountain. Bald Mountain, north of

the Big Bend is the place. The idea of looking for it on Iron Mountain was

wholly Mr. Gonyer's and I am disgusted at the result.

But I shall be glad to see you back here. I am very tired of being the whole

thing, so please do not delay your coming.3

Merrill died a few weeks later at age 75 on 15 August 1929. The

vacancy created was used to hire E.P. Henderson later that year.

Henderson conducted the second Smithsonian search. This

time the objective was to determine how accurately Evans'

route could be followed using the log of his travels, and also to

try to relocate the lost meteorite. Writing from Powers, Oregon,

on 10 June 1939 Henderson reported that he had been on the

job backpacking for a week and covered a lot of ground, but for

the next part of the trip he planned to "outfit a pack train of his

own." Writing again from Powers on 17 June, he reported that

he had "walked 150 miles over these trails not counting the

wild dashes of several hundred feet off the trail when promising

rock would be seen."4 He commented further that his efforts

had failed in locating the meteorite although a thorough search

had been made.

At the urging of Hollis M. Dole, State Geologist of Oregon,

an account of Henderson's trip was eventually published

(Henderson and Dole, 1964). These authors were clearly

skeptical of Evans' story, and pointed to problems with Evans'

journal and apparent contradictions between the journal and

Evans' letters to Jackson. They stressed that the journal was not

in Evans' hand, but was a presumed later transcription of field

notes by someone else, and that the route from Port Orford

across the Rouge River Mountains as described was ambiguous

when compared to the actual field situation. They found the

presence of fusion crust and the obvious freshness of the Port

Orford specimen to be inconsistent with long residence time in

the climate of the area, and claimed that the physical

characteristics of the Port Orford specimen demonstrated that it

could not have been removed from a larger mass. It also

interested them that the 1850s and 1860s had been a time when

local residents stimulated by the recent discoveries of gold in

California had become prospectors looking for gold and other

precious metals. Prospectors had been searching the area before

Evans visited it, and they continued to search for years after he

died. Would they not have found the giant pallasite if it were as

obvious as Evans claimed? The authors produced no hard

evidence, however, for doubting Evans' veracity, and as

unsuccessful attempts to find the meteorite did not prove that it

was not hidden somewhere in the region, there appeared to be

little more that could be done by meteorite scientists. The

record was incomplete, and if the gaps were to be filled the

research skills of an historian seemed to be required.

If we make the reasonable assumption that Jackson's reports

were accurate, there appear to be only three possible origins for

the pallasite specimen that Jackson received from Evans: (1)

the specimen was obtained exactly as Evans claimed, from a

previously unknown meteorite in Oregon, (2) the specimen was

from a previously unknown meteorite that was somehow

obtained by Evans, but not necessarily from a giant mass nor

from Oregon, or (3) it was a specimen from a previously known

meteorite obtained from a collector or dealer. Choice number

one became increasingly difficult to believe as the years went

by and the 10-ton mass was not found, and either choices two

or three implied something was seriously wrong with Evans'

story. Folklore, however, held this to be unlikely.

The specimen itself, of course, is a source of clues. Is it a

highly distinctive meteorite, of unusual composition, or one

that has been subjected to a terrestrial or preterrestrial history

that sets it apart in some way? Is it similar to other known

meteorites? Comparatively little modern work has been done

on the Port Orford meteorite. It was listed by Mason (1963) in

his discussion of the pallasite group of meteorites, described

briefly by Henderson and Dole (1964), its olivine composition

was given by Buseck and Goldstein (1969), and Buseck (1977)

gave petrographic observations. Possible pairings with known

meteorites have been considered. As a side issue in broader

geochemical studies of pallasite metal, Scott (1977) and Davis

(1977) considered it most likely that Port Orford was a

previously unknown meteorite. Their work clearly demonstrated that it was a main group pallasite, as are the great

majority of pallasites. Minor chemical differences, however,

seemed to indicate that it was not paired with the meteorite that

was considered the most obvious candidate, the Imilac, Chile,

main group pallasite. Prior to our work, no really comprehensive study of the specimen had been undertaken and there

seemed to be no good reason for undertaking one. Documentation was suspect, the specimen was very small, and it was

apparently a piece of an ordinary pallasite.

The context in which the Port Orford story must be viewed,

however, has recently changed abruptly and dramatically.
NUMBER 31 27

Howard Plotkin, an historian of science, became fascinated

with the Port Orford meteorite story. He first searched the

purported Oregon locality in June 1986 and returned the

following June hoping that his field work would yield

information that would lead to the recovery of the 10-ton

meteorite. His first search was followed by a visit to the

Smithsonian Institution's meteorite collection in July 1986,

where he talked with both E.P. Henderson and collection

manager Twyla Thomas. On 26 November 1986 Plotkin wrote

Roy S. Clarke, Jr., inquiring into his views on the Port Orford

story, and thus began what was to develop into a lively

correspondence. As a consequence, Plotkin sent an early draft

of his paper reinterpreting Evans' competence, character, and

motivations to the Smithsonian in the late summer of 1987

(Plotkin, 1992), shortly before Vagn Buchwald arrived for an

extended stay. We were fascinated with Plotkin's surprising

evaluation of Evans' motivations, and with his conclusion that

Evans had perpetrated a deliberate hoax using the meteorite

specimen as bait. Plotkin further concluded that the Port Orford

specimen is a piece of the Imilac, Chile, shower.

We found Plotkin's historical arguments persuasive and

appealing, and were stimulated to look at the Port Orford

specimen anew. Could we adduce technical evidence that

would be persuasive in establishing Port Orford as an Imilac

individual? Buchwald decided to undertake a thorough

metallographic examination of the Port Orford specimen with

particular emphasis on a comparison with the Imilac shower.

Over the years he had obtained detailed familiarity with the

Imilac meteorite as a result of examinations of numerous

museum specimens, field work that included defining the

Imilac strewnfield and the recovery of many small Imilac

specimens, and a thorough knowledge of the older, obscure

literature of Imilac and related meteorites (Buchwald, 1975).

Meteorite pairing is a general, long-standing, and occasionally severe problem in meteoritics. An approach to understanding its magnitude may be made by consulting the Catalogue of

Meteorites for the hundreds of synonyms listed there (Graham

et al., 1985). Currently, the pairing problem is particularly

acute and receiving much attention from those who are

involved in the study of Antarctic meteorites (Scott, 1989). The

decision to pair two specimens, that is, assign them to the same

meteorite fall, may be as simple as recognizing that they were

found close together, are of the same class, and are of the same

general state of preservation. Pairing meteorites of unusual or

distinctive properties is frequently straightforward. However,

pairing becomes a much more complex problem when many

meteorites are found to have accumulated over long periods of

time in the same general area, such as in Antarctica or

Roosevelt County, New Mexico (Marvin, 1989; Huss, 1990;

Zolensky et al., 1990).

Individuals among main group pallasites, the class that

includes both Port Orford and Imilac, are difficult to

distinguish from each other on the basis of mineralogical,

structural, and chemical properties. There is close similarity

and overlapping of characteristics within the group, and the

ranges of variation within an individual meteorite fall have not

been rigorously defined. These considerations are among our

reasons for presenting the results of this unusually thorough

meteorite pairing study, one that we believe contributes not

only to solving the problem at hand but also to the

methodology of pairing studies. These comprehensive studies

have led us to the belief that the Port Orford specimen is indeed

a transported piece of the Imilac meteorite shower, and that

Evans' story was fabricated for his own purposes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gero Kurat, Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria,

graciously made the Vienna Port Orford specimen available to

us for study and provided translation of catalog information.

Carleton B. Moore and Charles F. Lewis, The Arizona State

University, Tempe, provided the ASU Port Orford specimen

for examination.

Howard Plotkin, University of Western Ontario, London,

Canada, provided the historical insights that stimulated us to

undertake this work, and his cogent comments and generous

encouragement have continued throughout its realization.

William A. Deiss and William E. Cox provided access to and

materials from the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

This paper has benefited from critical reviews by Andrew M.

Davis, The Enrico Fermi Institute, The University of Chicago,

Chicago, Illinois; Robert T. Dodd, Department of Earth and

Space Sciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook,

Stony Brook, New York; Ursula B. Marvin, HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Marc Rothenberg, Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian

Institution, Washington, D.C.

This work was initiated while V.F. Buchwald was a visiting

scientist in the Department of Mineral Sciences, National

Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C, September 1987 through January 1988. We are both

indebted to the Suzanne Liebers Erickson Fund, and R.S.

Clarke, Jr., to the Research Opportunities Fund, Smithsonian

Institution, for partial financial support.

Pallasites and Their Early History

Before describing the technical examination of specimens it

will be helpful to comment briefly on the pallasite group of

meteorites, and the situation that leads to the Imilac, Chile,

meteorite being the obvious pairing candidate if Evans' story

was fabricated.

Pallasites consist of metal (FeNi) and olivine

[(Mg,Fe)2Si04)] in roughly equal volumes, with minor

amounts of troilite (FeS) and schreibersite [(Fe,Ni)3P]. The

metal forms a three-dimensional framework that encloses

cm-size olivine crystals. Figure 2-1 illustrates this relationship

on a polished surface of the Salta individual of the Imilac
28 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

FIGURE 2-1.—Imilac, Chile (USNM#1333), pallasite. A polished surface of the

Salta individual from the Imilac shower, emphasizing the relationship between

metal and olivine. The dark, cracked, and somewhat angular fragmental

material is olivine. The white to gray matrix is unetched metal. The slightly

darker gray areas at olivine/metal interfaces are troilite or schreibersite. Scale

bar 1 cm.

shower. The metal is complex (Figure 2-2) and consists of

several minerals and mineral associations: kamacite (low-Ni

FeNi, 5-7.5 wt% Ni), taenite (high-Ni FeNi, 52-35 wt% Ni),

tetrataenite (ordered FeNi, 52-48 wt% Ni), plessite (a

structural association of taenite, martensite, and kamacite), and

chromite (FeCr2O4), which frequently contains significant

quantities of Mg and Al. Troilite and schreibersite occur at

interfaces between metal and olivine, as well as within metal.

Olivine is associated with minor amounts of phosphate

minerals, as will be discussed below, and very rarely contains

P in substitution for some of its Si.

According to recent statistics, 39 different pallasite falls are

known, and only one of these falls was actually observed, the

Marjalahti fall of 1902 in Karelia, Russia (Graham et al.,

1985:227). Pallasites make up 1.4% of the total number of

known meteorites, and only 0.1% of the observed falls.

Meteorites in all of their variations are rare, and pallasites are a

minor component of this rare population. Their theoretical

importance derives from the unique association of massive,

FIGURE 2-2.—Imilac (Copenhagen specimen), polished and etched surface.

The metallic regions of pallasites form an almost continuous sponge with

olivine crystals (black, along all four edges) in the interstices. At high

temperature, the metal was single crystal taenite; upon cooling, kamacite

nucleated at metal/olivine interfaces and grew inward toward the center, now

occupying most of the area. In the process, the central area became enriched in

Ni and, at a late stage, its center decomposed into bainitic-martensitic plessite

(black). This structure is surrounded by a three-layer rim: innermost, a clear

taenite zone, followed by a zone of cloudy taenite that in turn is bordered by a

thin rim of tetrataenite in contact with the kamacite. Scale bar 400 (xm. (Taken

from Buchwald, 1975, fig. 2081B.)

comparatively low-density olivine suspended within metal, and

their very slow cooling rates. Olivine is a mineral associated

with deep-seated earth rocks, and iron meteorites are commonly suggested as coming from the cores of meteorite parent

bodies and are viewed as analogues of our core. This has led

many to believe that pallasites are analogues of our mantle/core

interface. Detailed metallographic analysis has led to the

conclusion that pallasites are among the most slowly cooled

meteorites (about 1°C per million years), implying that they

derive from large parent bodies (Buseck and Goldstein, 1969).

Evidence from fission track measurements in pallasitic phosphate minerals has been used to argue for a cooling rate about

a factor of ten faster (Pellas et al., 1983), but this is still a slow

rate for meteorites. More recent metallographic work has

moved these estimates closer together (Saikumar and Goldstein, 1988).

The Imilac pallasite has a long and complex history and a

rather inaccessible early literature (Buchwald, 1975:1393-

1400; Graham et al., 1985:174). Specimens were first

recovered from the Atacama Desert around 1820, and by the

late 1850s were in a number of hands in locations throughout

western and southern South America, were already widely

distributed in European collections, and had even reached

Moscow and the United States (Buchner, 1863:127). The

ancient Imilac fall was a shower from a large meteoroid

(probably at least 500 kg) that entered the atmosphere and

broke up, producing a number of large individuals and
NUMBER 31 29

thousands of small pieces that were recovered from a relatively

small area. Many of the larger masses were recovered early and

were rapidly dispersed. As a consequence they were initially

described under names and locations peculiar to a particular

mass, with little or no concern given for their actual place of

origin. Imilac individuals include the two Antofagasta, Chile,

individuals; the Gran Chaco and Salta (Figure 2-1) masses from

Argentina; and the Ollague, Bolivia, individual to name only a

few (Hey, 1966). The full extent of this synonymy has not been

recognized until relatively recently (Buchwald, 1975; Scott,

1977), and this has impeded the development of a clear

understanding of the range of variation in properties and

characteristics within specimens of the Imilac shower.

A crucial point in the consideration of pallasites is that we

now understand that in the 1850s only three distinct pallasite

falls were known: the historic Pallas Iron from Siberia, now

known as the Krasnojarsk meteorite, the Brahin meteorite from

Belorussiya, and the Imilac, Chile, meteorite already parading

under a number of different names and creating the impression

that pallasites are more common than they really are. For

reasons that will be discussed below, the Krasnojarsk and

Brahin meteorites are not possible sources of the Port Orford

specimen. Therefore, if Evans' story was fabricated, the Port

Orford specimen has to be an Imilac specimen or a previously

unknown meteorite.

Examination of Specimens

This section of the paper brings together previously reported

observations on the Port Orford specimens and on key Imilac

specimens, and adds new data and observations. The examination included the main Port Orford mass (USNM#617) and two

polished sections prepared from it, the Vienna specimen, and

the Arizona State University (ASU) specimen. The Smithsonian and Vienna specimens are illustrated in the Frontispiece,

and the new polished section in Figure 2-3. (Figures 2-4

through 2-7 are mirror images of areas outlined in Figure 2-3b.)

This is followed by observations on selected Imilac specimens

that will serve later in the discussion of the pairing of Port

Orford and Imilac.

The Port Orford specimen as received by Jackson in 1859

(Jackson, 1860) was presumably less than a complete individual, as at least one apparently cut or broken surface would have

been necessary to support Evans' claim that this particular

piece had been broken off of a much larger mass. Jackson

obviously consumed some material for his initial analysis, as he

reported that it contained "9 per cent nickel" in the summary of

his oral report to the Boston Society of Natural History of 5

October 1859 (Jackson, 1860:161).

The earliest recorded weight of the Port Orford specimen is

contained in "a typescript copy of a November 28, 1859 letter

from Charles T. Jackson to L. Elie de Beaumont" written

shortly after the oral report.5 The weight was given as l!/8

ounces (31.9 g). Haidinger reported the discovery of the Port

FIGURE 2-3.—Port Orford (USNM#617). Photograph at top is a polished and

etched section that was prepared for microscopic examination from a 1.6 g, 2

cm maximum length slice removed from the specimen in 1987. Specimen in

Frontispiece is resting on resulting new surface. Areas at left and right are

mainly metal, with black to very dark kamacite surrounding plessite. The

central and upper right areas are olivine. Index sketch at bottom of figure

indicates locations of areas that are discussed in the text and illustrated in

following figures.

Orford meteorite to the Academy of Sciences in Vienna,

Austria, on 5 July 1860, and in June of the following year

reported that Jackson had provided a 3.530 g piece of the

pallasite for the Vienna collection (Haidinger, 1860, 1861).

This specimen (#A662) was entered into the official register of

the mineral collection of the Natural History Museum, Vienna,

on 24 October 1861. It was reweighed while on loan to the

Smithsonian and was found to be 3.47 g. The ASU specimen

weighs 0.9 g, and a 0.19 g piece is reported to be in the

collection of the Museum of the Geological Survey of India,

Calcutta (Graham et al., 1985:290). A recent report also lists

0.5 g of Port Orford material in the collection of The Natural

History Museum, London (Graham et al., 1985, computer disk

update of June 1990).

The Smithsonian specimen was acquired from the Boston

Society of Natural History in May of 1920 (catalog number

USNM#617, accession number 64916) where apparently it had
30 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

resided unrecorded in the meteorite literature since the time of

Jackson. Unfortunately, the records do not make clear how the

Smithsonian became aware of the specimen. Its weight in 1920

was recorded as 25 g. In the early 1960s Henderson and Dole

(1964) reported its weight to be 24.2 g. More recently small

amounts of material have been removed for study. The polished

section used in this study was made from a 1.6 g slice removed

in late 1987. The current weight of the main mass is 17.7 g. The

sum of these various weights, plus the small amounts of

material distributed by the Smithsonian in recent years for

study, agrees well with Jackson's weight of 31.9 g.

PORT ORFORD SPECIMEN USNM#617

This Port Orford specimen is highly irregular in shape, with

many reentrant angles and cavities (see Frontispiece) and

dimensions of 28 x 25 x 18 mm in three perpendicular directions. If massive, these would correspond to a weight of

perhaps 50-70 g, so the low weight of only 17.7 g serves to

indicate the cavernous nature of the specimen.

The bulk of the Port Orford specimen is metallic, whereas

the cavities mainly stem from voids previously occupied by

olivine. The metal forms a three-dimensional network enveloping olivine crystals that are estimated to have been 0.5-2.0 cm

in diameter, a similar internal structure to that illustrated in

Figure 2-1. In protected locations a small amount of olivine

(and phosphates) remains.

The Port Orford specimen is unusually well preserved as

indicated by the retention of a beautifully developed fusion

crust, an uncommon feature on the metal surfaces of meteorite

finds. Exterior surfaces that were exposed to atmospheric

ablation are coated with the usual variations of warty and

striated appearing crust. Its presence was first noted in

Haidinger's (1861:2) early report, and he commented that the

main mass must be in a good state of preservation. The

thickness of the fusion crust ranges from nil to 200 (im and its

color varies from glossy black to matte brown. There has been

only modest corrosion attack, and it seems that where the

fusion crust is missing it is due to human activity, such as

scraping or clamping in a vise.

The section that was used for metallographic and electron

microprobe investigations is shown in Figure 2-3. The

accompanying index sketch indicates areas on this section that

are illustrated and discussed below. Nine different minerals and

plessite, all of which are known to occur in pallasitic

meteorites, are represented in this section: kamacite, taenite,

tetrataenite, schreibersite, troilite, chromite, olivine, farringtonite, and stanfieldite.

Sections through the Port Orford fusion crust show it to be a

mixture of metallic and nonmetallic phases in a ratio of about

8:1. The crust is seen to be rather complex, metallic parts

alternating with silicate parts; and sometimes in one and the

same location, metal on top of silicate on top of metal (Figures

2-4 and 2-5). The metallic fusion crust is fine grained with

2-20 fim spheroidal inclusions of melted troilite. The silicate

fusion crust is complex with numerous tiny metal and troilite

particles. The complexity, of course, comes from the pallasitic

nature of the meteorite. Being a mixture of coarse grains of

FIGURE 2-4.—Port Orford (USNM#617), enlargment of bottom left portion of

Figure 2-3 (mirror image). An etched section of an external surface rounded by

atmospheric ablation. Fusion crust still covers the surface irregularly in up to

100 um thick deposits (above left). Seven square indentions from Vickers

hardness determinations are in the kamacite (above right). Most of the field of

view is duplex plessite. Scale bar 1 mm.

FIGURE 2-5.—Port Orford (USNM#617), detail of upper right edge of Figure

2-3 (mirror image). Along the top edge is a 50 ^im thick fusion crust consisting

of a mixture of melted olivine, phosphates, oxidized metal, and with spherical

inclusions of melted metal. The gray area is one of 6 chromite crystals that have

been observed in kamacite, as here, or in farringtonite, as in Figures 2-6 and

2-8. Scale bar 0.1 mm.
NUMBER 31 31

TABLE 2-1.—Selected element comparison of oxidic part of the 100-200 \im thick fusion crust on Port Orford

with similar fusion crust on Imilac samples. Electron microprobe data with ranges in weight percent.

Pallasite Si Al Fe Ni

Port Orford USNM#617

Imilac USNM#6272

Imilac USNM#383 (Ilimaes)

2.5-5.6

3.8-14.7

2.7-5.4

0-0.1

0-0.1

0-0.1

34.7-53.6

18.4-43.9

44.8-53.6

1.3-5.3

0.6-5.0

4.5-5.6

1.3-7.4

0.2-3.7

0.4-2.1

metal and olivine, with small amounts of troilite, the fusion

crust is deposited on olivine crystals as well as on metallic

matrix, and in either case all three components may contribute

to the composition of the crust.

Typical portions of the fusion crust were subjected to

electron microprobe analysis.6 The data presented in Table 2-1

confirmed the complexity and the large variations, which are

due to varying ratios of melted metal (FeNi), olivine (Si),

troilite (Fe), schreibersite (Fe,Ni,P), and phosphates (P). Except

for P, the Port Orford values lie within the ranges established

by the two Imilac specimens. This local high P content for the

Port Orford fusion crust is caused by the presence of

phosphates at the ablating surface.

During ablation and fusion crust formation a thermal

gradient develops in the metal below the melt zone, resulting in

transformations that can be recognized under the microscope.

Kamacite is transformed to unequilibrated o^ to a depth of

0.1-0.5 mm. Locally, where a schreibersite veinlet happens to

be located in the exterior part of this heat-affected zone it is

micromelted due to the temperature being briefly over 1000° C.

The microhardness of kamacite (Vickers at 100 g load) is rather

variable because of the unequilibrated state, 185+15. From

these observations we may deduce that there was an extreme

temperature gradient from the surface toward the interior.

Whereas the fused crust was at least 1500° C, the temperature

0.2 mm below the crust (in metal) was about 1000° C, and 0.5

mm below the crust about 700° C. The interior probably was

never warmer than about 0° C.

Most of the Port Orford specimen is metal; kamacite, taenite,

and plessite. The kamacite contains 7.3-7.5 wt% Ni, and has a

microhardness (Vickers at 100 g load) of 167+10. There are

numerous, undisturbed Neumann bands in the kamacite, as

well as numerous subgrain boundaries, decorated with 1 ujn

schreibersite crystals, and locally there are minute 1 Jim

rhabdites (small schreibersites with rhombohedral outline)

within the kamacite. The kamacite forms 0.5-1.0 mm wide

swathing rims around olivine and the phosphates, as these

minerals acted as nucleation sites for kamacite when the

high-temperature taenite transformed on cooling.

Plessite fields, which comprise the high Ni portion of the

metal matrix, are found in the interior of the metal separated

from olivine and phosphates by the kamacite borders. Next to

the kamacite is a 1 }i.m wide yellow rim of tetrataenite, then

follows a 3-5 ^im wide cloudy zone, then a 3-5 (im yellow

zone that grades into a martensitic zone and finally into a

duplex interior (Figure 2-6). The duplex interior is a microWidmanstatten pattern of minute kamacite spindles and cells

with intercalated taenite veinlets only 0.5-2.0 |im thick. Some

plessite fields are developed as open-meshed comb plessite.

Schreibersite occurs occasionally as major crystals up to 100

fim thick and 700 \xm long, and more commonly as tiny

10-20 |im veinlets and knobs, both on kamacite grain

boundaries and in plessite interiors. It is monocrystalline and

only slightly brecciated.

Troilite is not common in the sections available. In one

occurrence a 0.6 mm troilite spheroid was attached to olivine

and in another a 0.5 mm troilite spheroid was enclosed in

kamacite. Both troilites were monocrystalline and slightly

deformed as indicated by scarce, narrow deformation twins.

Chromite crystals of small size (0.4-0.6 mm across, Figure

2-5) occur as subangular, cubic blebs at kamacite/olivine or

olivine/phosphate interfaces. The chromite contains 8.5-9.0

wt% A12O3 and 6.5-7.5 wt% MgO in solid solution. These

values agree well with analyses of Port Orford, Antofagasta,

and Ollague reported earlier by Bunch and Keil (1971).

Olivine [(Mg,Fe)2Si04], the only silicate mineral present,

FIGURE 2-6.—Port Orford (USNM#617), etched section, detail of area near

right edge of Figure 2-3 (mirror image). Above, typical development of the

plessite fields, duplex kamacite plus taenite alternating with martensitic zones

along the high-nickel taenite rims (black). Below, open-mesh comb plessite

with a schreibersite crystal to the right of the scale bar. Scale bar 0.3 mm.
32 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

occurs as subangular crystals, 0.5-2 cm in size. It is transparent

and ranges in color from almost colorless to a very light olive

green when viewed in mm-size fragments. Yellowish amberbrown nuances are seen in places where alteration due to

corrosion has started. Its chemical composition calculated as

the fayalite [Fe2Si04] endmember of the fayalite/forsterite

[Mg2SiO4] solid solution series is 12.5% fayalite, a common

pallasite olivine composition (Table 2-2). Ca, Al, alkali-metals,

P, and Ni were all below the level of detection of the electron

microprobe (about 0.1 wt%).

Surprisingly, two different phosphate minerals are present in

this recently prepared Port Orford section. With the unaided

eye they are indistinguishable from the olivine with which they

are intergrown, and they are not easy to distinguish from

olivine under the microscope. The phosphates are coarsely

crystalline and form 0.3-2 mm rims on areas adjacent to

olivine and kamacite (Figure 2-la-d).

Farringtonite [Mg3(PO4)2] is the more abundant phosphate

(Table 2-3, Figure 2-la,c). It is essentially pure magnesium

phosphate with only a few percent divalent Fe replacing

equivalent amounts of Mg. The farringtonite contains numerous small spheroidal inclusions, 2-20 [im across, of kamacite

and troilite. The second phosphate is the calcium-magnesium

phosphate stanfieldite [Ca4(Mg,Fe)5(PO4)6], also containing a

small amount of substitutional Fe (Table 2-3, Figure 2-lb,d).

The Port Orford specimen is well preserved and has been

stable under museum conditions in contrast to several other

pallasites and to a number of iron meteorites that continue to

spall and deteriorate indoors. Nevertheless, the initial stages of

terrestrial oxidation are present throughout on a microscopic

scale. The fusion crust is degenerating, the kamacite/olivine

grain boundaries are rich in limonitic veinlets, 10-80 |J.m thick,

TABLE 2-2.—The composition and shape of olivine (from data of Buseck and Holdsworth, 1977), and indications of the

presence (+) or absence (-) of fusion crust and phosphates in Port Orford and three other pallasites. (a = angular, f =

fragmented, F = farringtonite, r = rounded, reh = artifically reheated to 8OO°-9OO°C by finder, S = stanfieldite, tw = twisted

and sheared fragment, W = whitlockite.)

Pallasite

Krasnojarsk

Brahin

Imilac (Imilac)

Imilac (Antofagasta)

Imilac (Gran Chaco)

[milac (Ilimaes)

Imilac (Ollague)

Imilac (Salta)

Port Orford

Percent

fayalite

12.5

11.5

12.5

12.5

12.5

12.5

12.5

12.5

12.5

Olivine

shape Phosphorian

micro/macro olivine

r/r

f/f +

r/a

r/a

r/a

r/a

r/a

r/a

r/a

Fusion

crust

(this study)

_

-

+

+

tw

+

reh

+

+

Phosphates

_

-

W,S

w,s

-

s

w,s

w

S,F

TABLE 2-3.—Phosphates in Port Orford (USNM#617) compared with phosphates in other pallasites. Electron microprobe data, corrected. (n.d.

= not detected; n.s. = not sought.)

Pallasite

Port Orford

Springwater*

FeO

2.6-2.9

4.12

CaO

0.10

0.09

Farringtonite Mg3(PO4)2

MgO MnO

43.2-44.5 n.s.

43.4 0.02

Na.0

<0.03

n.d.

K2O

<0.01

n.d.

p2o5

52.5-52.8

52.6

Stanfieldite Ca4(Mg,Fe)5(PO4)6

FeO CaO MgO MnO K2O

* Data from Buseck and Holdsworth (1977).

Total

Port Orford

Imilac*

Springwater*

2.3

2.43

3.72

25.9

26.2

25.5

21.1

22.4

21.1

n.s.

0.42

0.56

<0.03

n.d.

0.11

<0.02

<0.03

n.d.

49.8

49.8

49.9

99.3

101.9

100.9
NUMBER 31 33

FIGURE 2-7.—Port Orford (USNM#617), polished and lightly etched section; detail of central area in Figure 2-3

(mirror image), a, Central rounded and pitted area is the surface of a globule-shape olivine; the lenticular area to

its right bordering metal is also olivine. The large dark area with small, apparently white, metal and/or troilite

inclusions is farringtonite. White areas are kamacite and the darker metal areas within the kamacite that are not

well resolved in this photograph are taenite-plessite areas (Figure 2-6). To the right of center at the top is an almost

square chromite inclusion within the farringtonite. The small light colored inclusion above the scale bar is troilite.

Scale bar 1 mm. b,c,d are enlargements from the lower right hand corner of a and slightly beyond: b, At center

right, crescent-shape olivine encloses metal and a stanfieldite wedge (see also d). White areas are kamacite

containing taenite-plessite. Farringtonite at left contains metal and/or troilite inclusions. Light gray chromite 0.7

mm long at lower right and a 0.4 mm chromite at lower left. Scale bar 0.5 mm. c\ Detail of upper center in b.

Farringtonite to left with metal and/or troilite inclusions, with olivine at top and bottom. Kamacite is white and

contains a slightly darker grain boundary schreibersite at its center. The complex structures within the kamacite

and associated with the grain boundary schreibersite are taenite-plessite areas containing interior nickel

martensite (dark). Scale bar 0.2 mm. d, Detail ofb. A stanfieldite wedge between two differently oriented olivine

crystals. Beginning corrosion has attacked the kamacite edges creating veinlets of goethite and akagan6ite. Scale

bar 0.1 mm.

as are many of the fine cracks through the olivine crystals.

A closer study of the weathering products show the presence

of akagane"ite and goethite. Akagane"ite appears bluish gray on

the polished surface and is fiery, orange-red under crossed

nicols. It is located at the actively corroding interface with

metal (usually kamacite), where it forms 10-50 \im wide

veinlets. Akaganeite recently has been recognized as an

important corrosion product in Antarctic meteorites (Buchwald

and Clarke, 1989), but this study and studies underway show

that akaganeite is omnipresent as an initial step in the
34 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

degradation of metal in meteorites.

Akaganeite is chlorine-containing |3-FeOOH with a monoclinic structure (Post and Buchwald, 1991). The chloride ions

penetrate the meteorite from the terrestrial environment and are

attracted to the corrosion front where they may participate in

corrosive reactions and/or be incorporated into the akaganeite

structure. Incorporated in the akaganeite, the chlorine ions lie in

reserve for future attack. When the meteorite becomes wet they

are released by an exchange reaction (Cl" *± OH) and become

available to depassivate the kamacite and participate in another

corrosion cycle, possibly becoming incorporated into a later

generation of akaganeite.

Akaganeite is metastable and is finally converted to the

stable oxide goethite, oc-FeOOH, which is also present in the

weathered parts of Port Orford. The composition range of

goethite/akaganeite veinlets is given in Table 2-4. It is typical

that the akaganeite contains significant Ni, because it formed

from Ni-containing kamacite. Small amounts of Mg and P are

also present, as olivine and phosphates also have been partially

decomposed. The accessory Ca and K ions are introduced from

the soil. The balance of the analyses is water and hydrogen.

THE VIENNA PORT ORFORD SPECIMEN #A662

For many years the only Port Orford specimen that was

known to the scientific community was the small piece that

Jackson had sent to Vienna (see Frontispiece). The location of

the major part of the specimen that Evans had sent to Jackson

was evidently unknown to meteorite workers until the

Smithsonian obtained it in 1920. Wulfing (1897:283) cited the

published literature on Port Orford and listed 4 g in Vienna,

with tiny fragments at Berlin, Calcutta, and in the Museum of

Practical Geology, London. Farrington (1915:358-360) also

reviewed the literature and quoted extensively from the

Jackson/Evans correspondence. He commented that "only 4

grams of the meteorite are known to be preserved. This is in the

Vienna collection."

Our physical examination of the Vienna Port Orford

specimen was not as exhaustive as that of the larger mass, but

where comparable observations were possible agreement was

excellent. The two pieces give every appearance of being from

the same initial mass, but by placing the two together it did not

prove possible to suggest a spatial relationship between them.

The specimen has a sawn surface of -0.4 cm2 that had been

polished and etched in the past and appears to be the same

surface that was described and illustrated by Brezina and

Cohen (1886). Sitting on this cut surface, the specimen has five

other readily discernable surfaces. Four of these were exterior

surfaces during atmospheric passage and are about 80%

covered with a thick fusion crust. The fifth is the surface of a

cavity that contained a cm-size olivine. Three mm-size

olivine-containing areas are exposed on the fusion-crusted

surfaces.

The previously etched surface was repolished and etched

(Figure 2-8), and examined microscopically and with the

electron microprobe. The surface is edged in kamacite and is

dominated by three plessite regions. The edge in the top of the

photograph is an original exterior surface that has been

heat-altered to martensite (04). The three closely spaced, small

dark areas at the upper left are olivine. The crescent-shape

embayment in the kamacite 3 mm SSE of the small olivines

also contains olivine (difficult to recognize at this exposure).

Below this embayment is another small embayment that

contains chromite. Within the kamacite area on the right side of

the specimen and protruding into the plessite is an olivine 1 mm

in length. Across the kamacite from this inclusion is a thin

border of olivine over 2.5 mm long. Two schreibersite

inclusions may be recognized in the kamacite at the top of the

photograph, and two other schreibersite areas are in the large

kamacite area at the lower right. One of these schreibersites is

bordering the plessite area. The details of the plessite areas are

as described above. Olivine and chromite compositions were

measured on the electron microprobe, and within reasonable

margins of error, are indistinguishable from compositions

reported for USNM#617.

THE ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY,

PORT ORFORD SPECIMEN #1100

Howard Plotkin7 called our attention to a letter of 22

December 1863 from C.U. Shepard8 to C.T. Jackson requesting

TABLE 2-4.—Comparison of the weathering products (goethite and akaganeite) on Port Orford; Imilac;

Willamette, Oregon; and Uwharrie, North Carolina, specimens.

Pallasite

Port Orford USNM#617

Imilac USNM#6272

Imilac USNM#383 (Ilimaes)

Imilac USNM#956

Willamette USNM#333

Willamette USNM#333

Uwharrie USNM#850.1

Cl

0.1-0.5

0-1.1

0.2-0.5

0-0.1

17-19

2.9-5.1

4.8-5.6

Fe

43.5-56.0

47.9-54.7

49.3-57.4

46.4-50.1

49-50

45-52

49.2-50.9

Mg

0-0.3

0-0.3

0.1-0.6

0-0.2

<0.05

<0.05

<0.05

Ca

0-0.1

0-0.4

0.2-0.5

0-0.7

<0.05

<0.05

<0.05

K

0-0.2

0-0.2

0.2-0.5

<0.05

<0.05

<0.05

<0.15

Ni

2.6-8.9

1.7-5.0

1.8-5.6

2.5-8.0

0.5

5-7

0.3-0.6

P

0-3.0

0-1.1

0.1-0.2

0-2.1

<0.05

<0.1

<0.05
NUMBER 31 35

FIGURE 2-8.—Photographic mosaic of etched surface of the Vienna Port Orford specimen #A662. Kamacite

borders areas of plessite, and overall metallography is identical to that of the Smithsonian Port Orford sample.

Olivine, schreibersite, and chromite may be seen on close inspection. Maximum width 1.3 cm.

a piece of the Port Orford meteorite because the Oregon

Territory was so poorly represented in his collection. Presumably Jackson granted the request by sending a small amount to

Shepard. A major part of Shepard's meteorite collection went

to Amherst College, and the Amherst collection eventually

went to Arizona State University, Tempe.

The specimen consists of two small pieces of metal (588 and

232 mg), several olivine crystals and fragments (46 mg), and a

small amount of debris (47 mg). The larger piece of metal is a

fish-shape slice 14 mm in length and 1-3 mm thick. The larger

of the two surfaces has been deeply etched revealing a pallasitic

metallic structure. The other surface is rough sawn. One edge of

the slice is an exterior surface that is about 40% fusion crusted.

Small fragments of olivine and chromite adhere to the other,

interior edge. The smaller piece of metal is also exterior surface

material that is fusion crusted, revealing considerable aerodynamic detail. The olivine crystals are pale yellow and water

clear. The fine debris contains smaller fragments of olivine,

chromite fragments, chips of fusion crust, corrosion products,

cutting residues, etc. Everything that was observed using a

low-power microscope indicates that this material is similar in

every way to the other Port Orford specimens.

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON,

PORT ORFORD SPECIMEN #1985,M.187

This specimen was not examined by us. The information

given here is a summary of available documentation provided

by Dr. Andrew L. Graham:9

The specimen is not recorded in the catalogue of the collection of meteorites

in the possession of W. Nevill, FGS, Godalming, Surrey dated 3 October 1867.

It is, however recorded in the catalogue of meteorites in the Nevill collection

dated May 1872, as Rogue River but no weight is reported. This collection was

purchased by H Ludlam in about 1876. The Rogue River specimen is included

in the catalogue of the Ludlam-Nevill collection of meteorites in the possession

of H Ludlam, 174 Piccadilly, London which is not dated but was printed in

about 1876. This collection was bequeathed to the Museum of Practical

Geology (forerunner of the Geological Museum) in 1880.

The specimen now weighs less than 0.5g and consists of numerous small

fragments of olivine and rusting metal.

The collection of the Geological Museum was incorporated
36 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

into the collection of The Natural History Museum, London, in

1985.

THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA, CALCUTTA,

PORT ORFORD SPECIMEN #11

Information on the Calcutta specimen was provided by Dr.

S.K. Mazumder.10 Its weight is 0.194 g, and it was in the

collection of Professor R.R Gregg, which was purchased by the

Government of India in 1935.

IMILAC SPECIMENS

In the past, Imilac specimens have tended to be thought of as

weathered to the point where fusion crust no longer remains.

We now realize that although fusion-crusted Imilac specimens

are not common, good examples do exist. Typical of these

unusually well-preserved samples is the 217 g Imilac slice

(USNM#6272) that arrived in Washington, D.C., in early 1975.

It is part of a 1255 g well-preserved, fusion-crusted mass found

in the heart of the Imilac strewnfield in December 1973

(Smithsonian accession file number 356767). About onequarter of this mass is preserved in the museum of the

university in Salta, Argentina. Fusion crust covers approximately 50 cm2

 of the exterior of USNM#6272 as a fused

mixture of silicate and metal, reaching thicknesses of about 100

Hm (Table 2-1). Under the fusion crust is a heat-affected oc2

zone that is 500 (im thick.

On the two Imilac specimens (USNM#383, cataloged under

the name Ilimaes) of 66 g and 3.6 g, distinct fusion crust, up to

200 Jim thick, covers significant parts of the surface (Table

2-1), whereas the remaining surface is clearly one of fracturing,

mainly through olivine. Under the fusion crust are heat-affected

c^ zones 0.5-1.2 mm thick, with micromelted phosphides in

the exterior half.

Fusion crust and well-preserved olivines also are present on

a 193 g Imilac specimen (USNM#8) and on several smaller

Imilac samples that were collected by Buchwald in 1973. There

is no doubt that a certain proportion of the "exploding" Imilac

main mass survived very well, with only limited destruction of

the olivine and with development of beautiful fusion crust and

thin heat-affected zones. Some of these fragments also survived

the weathering attack very well, probably because they were

not buried but exposed on some rock surface.

Discussion

As stated above and discussed in greater detail below, it is

most unlikely that the Port Orford specimen could have come

from either the Krasnoyarsk or the Brahin falls. Imilac,

therefore, is the only pairing possibility. Presented here is a

discussion of the data and observations that bear on Port

Orford/Imilac pairing with a subsequent discussion of the other

two meteorites. This section is organized loosely under

properties that are a consequence of the specimen's parent

body, properties that are a consequence of its atmospheric

passage, and characteristics that are the result of its residence

on the Earth's surface.

CHARACTERISTICS DERIVED FROM THE PARENT BODY

The compositions of major and minor minerals, their

petrographic relationships, and the meteorite's cooling history

as revealed by metallographic structures are all properties that

derive from the asteroidal parent body in which the material

formed. Mason (1963) and Buseck and Goldstein (1969)

defined pallasite olivine compositions and demonstrated that

they are closely similar for most pallasites. Scott (1977)

measured Ni and Co, and the trace elements Au, As, Ga, Ge, Ir,

and W in the metal of 28 different pallasites. Of these, 19 fell

within what Scott defined as the "main group" pallasites, three

others fell into a separate group, and a few remained

ungrouped. These classification groups are similar to those

used to classify iron meteorites (Scott and Wasson, 1975;

Buchwald, 1975:70), and main group pallasites were shown to

have compositional relationship to the IIIAB iron meteorites.

Port Orford, Imilac, Krasnoyarsk, and Brahin were all included

among the main group pallasites.

Data on olivine characteristics for six distinct Imilac

individuals, and for Krasnojarsk and Brahin (Buseck and

Holdsworth, 1977), are summarized in Table 2-2 and compared

with our data for Port Orford. In the first column, the names in

parentheses following Imilac are the synonyms used by the

authors, names under which these specimens were long known

in the literature. In contrast to Brahin, none of the Imilac

specimens is known to have phosphorian olivine.

A comparison of Ni and Co contents with the main trace

elements in the metal of Imilac and Port Orford specimens is

given in Table 2-5. Both Davis (1977) and Scott (1977) have

published similar data sets for these pallasites, but we have

chosen to use only Davis' data as it is more extensive and it

enables us to avoid the problems of interlaboratory differences.

Included in his survey were Imilac and four other South

American pallasites, Antofagasta, Ilimaes, Ollague, and Salta.

These four pallasites have been shown by Buchwald (1973,

1975) and Scott (1977) to be fragments of the Imilac shower,

and they permit us to interpret Davis' data as sampling five

different pieces of the Imilac fall.

These data show variability with respect to both Ni and trace

elements, but there is a clear pattern for the Imilac specimens.

For example, Au and Cu are positively correlated with Ni,

whereas Ge and As are negatively correlated with Ni. This may

be interpreted, at least in part, as a consequence of having

analyzed samples with slightly different ratios of kamacite to

plessite, which may easily happen when working with samples

as small as 60-100 mg. The swathing kamacite/taenite-plessite

proportions may then easily vary from sample to sample.

Higher Ni values would be observed in samples richer in the
NUMBER 31 37

TABLE 2-5.—Elemental composition of the metallic matrix of Port Orford, compared to that of the pallasites

Krasnojarsk, Brahin, and Imilac. Neutron activation analyses by Davis (1977, table III-7).

Pallasite

Krasnojarsk

Brahin

Imilac (Imilac)

Imilac (Antofagasta)

Imilac (Ilimaes)

Imilac (Ollague)

Imilac (Salta)

Port Orford

Ni

wt%

8.9

9.2

9.6

10.1

10.4

9.2

8.9

11.3

Co

ppm

6170

5630

5670

5200

5430

5950

5900

5470

Cu

ppm

101

140

131

141

141

133

109

202

Ga

ppm

22.9

23.3

23.1

22.4

22.4

23.1

21.8

21.2

Ge

ppm

56.1

-

48.3

46.0

39.9

46.2

51.0

34.1

As

ppm

28.1

26.9

24.4

20.9

21.4

25.8

25.5

22.8

Pd

ppm

4.41

-

4.61

5.38

5.02

4.19

4.19

5.29

Os

ppb

97.4

-

91

107

125

103

124

102

Ir

ppb

200

98

80.9

94.2

112

75.5

83.8

82.1

Pt

ppm

2.16

-

1.77

1.79

1.64

1.84

1.56

0.93

Au

ppm

2.48

2.63

2.40

2.56

2.52

2.37

2.30

2.62

more Ni-rich taenite-plessite areas. If under these circumstances samples are genetically related, systematic trends

should be seen between Ni and other elements. Using the data

from Table 2-5, Ge and Au are plotted against Ni in Figure 2-9

for the five Imilac specimens and Port Orford. Also plotted on

the diagram are simple best-fit lines for the five Imilac

specimens. The Port Orford values, the squares to the right of

the diagram, are extreme values, but they lie close to the line

indicating consistency with a genetic relationship to Imilac.

Best-fit lines calculated using all six sets of values make the

agreement look even better.

The phosphates known to be present in Port Orford and

Imilac specimens are listed in Table 2-2. Stanfieldite has been

reported in four other Imilac specimens, and the Port Orford

and Imilac stanfieldite compositions are closely similar (Table

2-3). Farringtonite has not been reported previously from

Imilac, a fortuitous occurrence, but not a reason to claim

separate origins. Its composition agrees well with that

previously reported for the Springwater pallasite (Table 2-3). (ppm)

o

O

50

45

40

35

'••-. A

A

A

..••••"A

..A"'"

• A

\

Au = 0.16Ni + 0.84

Au

Imilac &

Port Orford a

* ..-•••• "

...>< A

A '•'•-..

/

Ge = -5.56 Ni + 99.87

Ge

A

•

D

• '•'•••.._

2.75

Q.

2.5 £

3

2.25

10

Wt. % Ni

11 12

FIGURE 2-9.—A plot of Ni versus Ge and Au concentrations for 5 Imilac

specimens (triangles) and the Port Orford specimen (squares) using the values

of Davis (1977, table 5). Simple best-fit lines for the 5 Imilac specimens are

also given.

These phosphates are known in other pallasites (Buchwald,

1984), but they are distributed erratically, similar to olivine in

appearance, and are easily overlooked and, hence, may go

unrecorded.

The slow metallographic cooling rates of pallasites have

been mentioned above. Consistent with these rates is the

presence of unusually well-developed tetrataenite borders at

kamacite/plessite interfaces when compared with iron meteorites (Clarke and Scott, 1980). Occasionally the plane of section

intersects a tetrataenite border at a low angle, exaggerating its

thickness and permitting optical anisotropy to be seen. Figure

2-10 is an example of this in the Port Orford meteorite. The

anisotropy that is seen, perhaps with some difficulty in Figure

2- 10b, is actually much more dramatic under the microscope

due to color differences. The presence of anisotropy establishes

that this border is tetrataenite, ordered FeNi, and not

compositionally similar disordered taenite. The presence of

tetrataenite is evidence that the interior of the Port Orford

specimen has not been severely shocked, nor has it been

exposed to mild heating for modest periods of time or to severe

heating for a short time.

PROPERTIES RELATED TO ATMOSPHERIC PASSAGE

Fusion crust overlying heat-altered zones on the surfaces of

the Port Orford specimen are remnants of ablative passage

through our atmosphere. We have noted above that although

the Imilac shower generally has not been recognized as

producing fusion-crusted specimens, there actually are a small

number of very well-preserved and fusion-crusted Imilac

specimens known. Heat-altered zones have been observed on

many small Imilac specimens.

Possibly the first description of a fusion-crusted Imilac

specimen was given by H.A. Ward (1906:226). He described

the 95 kg Ilimaes mass as follows:

The main portion of the exterior was covered by a thick coating of melted

matter, or crust, which was broken by several areas of several square inches

each The thickness of the crust is from 0.3 to 0.5 mm., being thicker above

the stony than above the iron part of the mass.... Quite exceptional among all
38 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

FIGURE 2-10.—Port Orford (USNM #617). a, The top and sides, grading from

dark to lighter shades of gray, is cloudy taenite. The large, light gray area

containing scratches and bordering the bottom of the photograph is kamacite.

The black line edging the white border separating kamacite from the cloudy

taenite is an optical effect. This 3-20 |im thick border is tetrataenite. b, Partially

crossed Nicols. The patchiness in the tetrataenite is due to optical anisotropy.

Oil immersion, scale bar 50 \im.

the pallasites with which the writer is acquainted, although approximated by

Marjalahti, is the thickness and firm investment of this outer crust.

The accompanying photograph (Ward, 1906, plate 23) persuasively supports this description, as does the comparison with

fusion crust on the Marjalahti pallasite. Fusion-crusted Marjalahti material was recovered promptly after a single individual

fell in Karelia in June 1902 (Graham et alM 1985:227). Ward's

observations, however, had not been integrated into the general

understanding of the Imilac shower because the Ilimaes

specimen only recently has been recognized as an Imilac

individual (Buchwald, 1975:1393).

Particularly influential in our thinking on linking Port Orford

fusion crust to fusion crust on Imilac specimens was the Imilac

specimen USNM#6272 discussed above. It has welldeveloped, fresh-appearing fusion crust, and it was collected in

the strewnfield as late as 1973. If a specimen that well

preserved was found at such a late date, Evans might well have

obtained a similar one in the late 1850s. Having a choice,

anyone with an eye for geologic specimens would naturally

select the fresher appearing and more attractive fusion-crusted

material.

The fusion crust/heat-altered zone association on the Port

Orford specimen clearly speaks to its origin as an individual

from a shower producing meteorite. The 0.5 mm heat-altered

zone underlying Port Orford's fusion crust represents a steep

thermal gradient when compared to the typically 2 mm thick

heat-altered zones on meteorites that penetrated the atmosphere

as single, unbroken bodies. These meteorites, for instance,

contain micromelted phosphides to a depth of 1 mm, indicating

the 1000° C contour. On both the Port Orford and the many

small Imilac specimens examined, the surface temperature was

lower. The phosphides did not melt, and the complete zone

where ablative effects can be recognized metallographically is

narrower than the 1000° C contour on meteorites that penetrated as individuals. These steep gradients are typical of

meteorites that passed through much of the atmosphere

incorporated in larger bodies that experienced late breakup,

producing many smaller individuals to continue in ablative

flight into the lower atmosphere. The shape and size of the Port

Orford specimen as we know it fits with the gradient to show

that it originated as a small piece by rupture of a larger body in

the upper atmosphere and penetrated only the lower atmosphere as an independent body. It was probably initially an

egg-size fragment. During the ensuing brief and violent period,

the projectile's extraterrestrial kinetic energy was absorbed by

atmospheric compression and the resulting frictional surface

heating. Surface material was melted and removed in successive thin layers, and some of the olivine that survived the initial

disruption was lost. Within only a second or two its kinetic

energy was absorbed, leaving an -30 g fusion-crusted nucleus,

essentially unheated a few hundred microns below its surface,

to free-fall the remaining few kilometers for a comparatively

gentle landing.

Numerous small Imilac specimens exhibit distorted and

sheared structures (Figure 2-11). On the exterior faces there

may be distinct fluting and shearing, sometimes to the effect of

creating wedge-shape fragments, bounded by two shear

surfaces. When the specimens are examined on a metallographic section taken perpendicular to the shear face, the structural

elements are seen to be visibly bent and dislocated as illustrated

in Figure 2-12. Originally coherent taenite ribbons may be cut

across and dislocated 0.2-0.5 mm relative to each other. The

brittle schreibersite crystals are broken and dislocated in a

series of steps, producing offsets of 1-25 (im.

These changes are due to the final violent deceleration and

breakup of the incoming meteoroid within the atmosphere.

Breakup of the mixture of olivine crystals and metal occurs

when the metallic bridges shear. The shearing also severely

damages and fissures olivine, schreibersite, and phosphates,
NUMBER 31 39

mmm

1

 7 8

* » 1 * * I I I

91 -

l

FIGURE 2-11.—Imilac (Copenhagen). Six fragments of the shower weighing 5-15 g each, collected on the site in

the Atacama Desert, Chile, by V.F. Buchwald in 1973 (Buchwald, 1975:1395). The Port Orford specimen is

similar to these but with better-preserved fusion crust and less deformation. Scale in cm.

FIGURE 2-12.—Imilac (Copenhagen), a, A section through one of the distorted fragments (20 g) from the

strewnfield. Plastic deformation is visible along the top edge, and a shear zone has dislocated the taenite in the

right side of the picture (Buchwald, 1975:1396, fig. 2082). Scale bar 400 ^im. b, Detail of a. Distorted metal is

indicated by the slip lines in the kamacite (gray) and the over-bent taenite and plessite fields. Corrosion rims the

top edge (solid black), but some of the heat-affected Oj zone formed during atmospheric flight has been preserved

(granular gray). Scale bar 100 |im.

which later easily disappear by the combined action of

terrestrial corrosion and erosion (Figure 2-12).

The Port Orford specimen is damaged by shearing only to a

very limited extent, suggesting that it separated from the

incoming meteorite rather early and did not participate in the

final violent breakup.
40 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

WEATHERING HISTORY

The extent of corrosion to which the Port Oxford specimen

has been subjected indicates that it is clearly not a recent fall,

but one that has resided for some time in a mildly corrosive

environment. In Table 2-4 electron microprobe data are

presented on the goethite/akaganeite areas found at various

localities on the Port Orford section and on three different

Imilac sections. Data also are given for corrosion products on

the iron meteorites Willamette, found in Oregon, and the

Uwharrie, found in North Carolina. Because Port Orford was

said to have been derived from Oregon, the data from

Willamette, which was found in a forested region not very far

from the mythical Port Orford location, may be of particular

value for comparison.

Corrosion products in similar locations on specimens from

the Imilac shower and Port Orford are seen to have similar

compositions. On the other hand, corrosion products in similar

locations on Willamette are characterized by much higher Cl

contents. The Willamette corrosion-product composition is, in

turn, similar to that observed for Uwharrie, both meteorites

having weathered in wet, temperate zone climates. Imilac

corrosion products are characteristic of long-time exposure to

the arid conditions of the 3000 m high desert location in North

Chile. As the Port Orford corrosion products are identical to

those on Imilac specimens, it must be concluded that Port

Orford weathered, and was therefore found, in a desert

environment and not on the humid slopes of some western

Oregon mountain.

A foreign particle was noted in the akaganeite/goethite

corrosion crust of Port Orford. The particle comes from the soil

where Port Orford was weathered and remained with the

meteorite engulfed in its corrosion products. The composition

of this particle is given in Table 2-6 and compared with five

similar particles found in the corrosion products of an Imilac

specimen. Although there is no direct correspondence, it

appears that all six particles are of a feldspathic nature and

could have derived from a weathering granite or gneiss terrain,

consistent with the recovery site of the Imilac meteorite

(Buchwald, 1975:1397). On the other hand, this association is

inconsistent with the specimen having weathered in the

geologic setting of the Port Orford, Oregon, area.

OTHER POSSIBLE PAIRINGS

As mentioned above, there were only three individual

pallasite finds known in the 1850s: Krasnojarsk, Imilac, and

Brahin (Tables 2-2 and 2-5). Is it possible that the Port Orford

specimen can be paired with either Krasnojarsk or Brahin? The

Krasnojarsk meteorite is the historically important Pallas Iron

found in Siberia in 1749. Samples were sawn and broken from

this single 700 kg mass in the early 19th century and distributed

all over the world to museums and the serious collectors of the

day. In his initial announcement of the Port Orford meteorite,

Jackson (1860:161) noted similarities between Port Orford and

the Krasnojarsk meteorite. He suggested that they might be two

pieces of the same shower separated by an unusually wide

distance, a distance that is considered unacceptably great today.

The compositions of Krasnojarsk metal and olivine are

presented in Tables 2-2 and 2-5. None of the many Krasnojarsk

specimens examined by us have fusion crust and we know of

no literature reports of fusion crust. They are more corroded

than Imilac specimens and their corrosion differs in detail,

suggesting corrosion in a more humid environment. In

addition, phosphates have never been reported in Krasnojarsk.

However, the shape of the olivine grains is rounded, both on a

macroscopic and a microscopic scale, and they resemble the

olivines of Port Orford.

Brahin was found in 1810 in Belorussiya, but apparently was

not distributed very much outside of Russia in the 19th century.

The British Museum collection still contains only 28 g and the

Smithsonian Institution collection only 19 g. Similar small

specimens reached other collections, whereas Vienna, Berlin,

and Paris fared better with 3320 g, 313 g, and 218 g

respectively (Buchner, 1863:129; Wulfing, 1897:41, 42;

Graham et al., 1985:80). It is highly unlikely that small

individuals of Brahin were available in the Americas in the

1850s. The composition of its metal and olivine is given in

Tables 2-2 and 2-5. Brahin specimens are corroded, have no

fusion crust, and phosphates have not been reported. The shape

of the olivine grains is fragmental and very different from Port

Orford olivines, and the olivine is rich in phosphorus as was

shown by Buseck and Holdsworth (1977), an important

distinction.

In our judgment, it is impossible that the Port Orford

TABLE 2-6.—A foreign particle embedded in the weathering crust of Port Orford compared to similar particles in

the weathering crust of Imilac specimens. Electron microprobe data in weight percent. (n.s. = not sought)

Pallasite

Port Orford USNM#617

Imilac USNM#6272a

Imilac USNM#6272b

Imilac USNM#6272c

Imilac USNM#6272d

Imilac USNM#6272e

Si

30.1

29.6

28.6

40.0

23.8

25.8

Al

6.4

10.9

6.3

6.9

8.9

11.3

Fe

5.2

3.5

13.2

2.1

7.0

5.4

Mg

0.5

0.2

0.1

0.1

1.9

1.4

Ca

0.3

0

0.3

0

3.6

2.4

K

1.2

12.0

4.0

3.7

0.6

1.6

Na

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

4.7

3.6
NUMBER 31 41

specimen came from either the Krasnojarsk or the Brahin

meteorites.

Conclusions

On the basis of the physical examination and known

chemical properties of the Port Orford meteorite specimens, it

is possible to outline its terrestrial history in some detail. It is a

main group pallasite that is chemically, structurally, and

morphologically indistinguishable from the Imilac pallasite.

Port Orford's fusion crust and heat-altered zone clearly label it

as a small individual that entered the atmosphere within a larger

mass that ruptured and produced a shower of individual

meteorite specimens. This rules out the possibility that the Port

Orford specimen was a piece removed from a much larger mass

as Evans had claimed, and proves that he lied on an utterly

fundamental point. At first glance the extent and nature of Port

Orford's terrestrial corrosion indicate that either it has been

exposed to a humid terrestrial environment for a very short

time, such as in the mountains along the Oregon coast, or it has

been on the ground for a long period in an arid environment,

such as that of the Imilac, Chile, strewnfield. A closer study of

the specimen, however, reveals tell-tale signs that indicate that

the meteorite is clearly not from a recent fall, but has weathered

for some time in a mildly corrosive environment. A few Imilac

specimens are as well preserved as the Port Orford specimen.

This forces us to conclude that the Port Orford specimen is

either an Imilac individual or the only individual ever to have

been recovered from a pallasite shower virtually indistinguishable from Imilac. This latter possibility, however, strains

credulity.

Imilac specimens were in circulation during Evans' time,

and it certainly is possible that he could have acquired one.

Other evidence reinforces this conclusion. In particular, Port

Orford's overall shape and size, its hardness, the shape and

compositions of its olivine grains, the composition of its

phosphates, its terrestrial corrosion products, and its adherent

soil particles all lend convincing support to the conclusion that

the Port Orford meteorite is actually a specimen from the Imilac

shower. The trace element data are consistent with this

conclusion. Although they do not by themselves lead to a Port

Orford/Imilac pairing11 and are still controversial, they are

sufficiently similar to suggest a basic chemical relationship

between the two meteorites. Considering all of these factors in

concert with the evidence Plotkin (1992) has marshaled

convinces us that the Port Orford meteorite is an Imilac

specimen and that Evans perpetrated a deliberate hoax using an

individual from the Imilac shower as bait.

Notes

!

In a letter of 21 December 1990 to Roy S. Clarke, Jr. (RSC), Richard Pugh,

a student of and longtime friend of Erwin F. Lange, wrote that "it was my

feeling that after a quarter of a century of phone calls, letters and all his research

Dr. Lange was having reservations about the existence of the Port Orford

meteorite."

2

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7177, Box 17.

3Letter in the Port Orford file in the Division of Meteorites, National

Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

4Letters from E.P. Henderson to A. Wetmore, Smithsonian Archives,

Record Unit 305. Howard Plotkin called these to the attention of RSC in a letter

of 6 June 1989.

5

Plotkin supplied this information in a letter of 22 January 1990 to RSC.

^The ARL SEMQ electron microprobe in the Department of Mineral

Sciences, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., was used

for these and all subsequent analyses reported in this paper.

7Letter of 22 January 1990 from Plotkin to RSC.

8C.U. Shepard (1804-1896) was a professor of natural history at Amherst

College. He started collecting meteorites in about 1840, an activity that

continued throughout his life. He described many meteorites and assembled

"what was to become the finest mineral collection in the United States in the

nineteenth century" (Burke, 1986:201). Part of his meteorite collection, 217

specimens, came to the Smithsonian Institution in 1886 and was ultimately

bequeathed to the Smithsonian by his son, Professor C.U. Shepard, Jr., of the

Charleston Medical College, Charleston, South Carolina, in 1915 (Merrill,

1916; mason, 1975:8).

9Letter of 2 August 1990 from A.L. Graham to RSC.

10Letter of 27 August 1990 from S.K. Mazumder to RSC.

n

In a letter of 31 January 1991 to RSC, Andrew M. Davis describes

unpublished work based on his pallasite data base. It is his opinion "that the Ru

and Pt data exclude the possibility that Port Orford is part of Imilac."
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