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 04 1993
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS
Washington, D.C.
1993
ABSTRACT
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 appropria-
tion? 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 Smith-
sonian 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
43*05"
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-nineteenth-
century 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 contempo-
rary 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 Meteor-
ites, 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 Univer-
sity, 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 above-
mentioned 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 redis-
covered. 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 conclu-
sively 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 magne-
tometer, 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 consider-
able 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 execu-
tion; 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 Depart-
ment 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 Depart-
ment of the Interior in 1851, largely on Owen's recommenda-
tion, 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 mineralogi-
cal 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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18 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES
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 measure-
ments 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 impossi-
ble 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 appropria-
tion.
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 Hand-
book 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 speci-
mens 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 re-
spects ... 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 representa-
tive 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 unforgetta-
bly 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, Mathema-
tisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse Sitzungsberichte, 41(1860), pages 568-
572.
3For 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.
4John 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.
5Ibid.
^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.
7Jackson, "Sketch," page 315.
8Ibid, 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." Geologi-
cal 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 genera-
tion. 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, Classifica-
tion 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 demon-
strated 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 comprehen-
sive study of the specimen had been undertaken and there
seemed to be no good reason for undertaking one. Documenta-
tion 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 occasion-
ally severe problem in meteoritics. An approach to understand-
ing 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, Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachu-
setts; 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, Washing-
ton, 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 com-
monly 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 phos-
phate 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 Gold-
stein, 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 examina-
tion 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 Smith-
sonian 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 individ-
ual, 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 direc-
tions. 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 envelop-
ing 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, farring-
tonite, 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 micro-
Widmanstatten 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 amber-
brown 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 numer-
ous 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-
sw,s
wS,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 mono-
clinic 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. Presum-
ably 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 aerody-
namic 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 one-
quarter of this mass is preserved in the museum of the
university in Salta, Argentina. Fusion crust covers approxi-
mately 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 circum-
stances 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 meteor-
ites (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) persua-
sively supports this description, as does the comparison with
fusion crust on the Marjalahti pallasite. Fusion-crusted Marja-
lahti 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 well-
developed, 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 pene-
trated 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 atmos-
phere 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 succes-
sive 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 metallogra-
phic 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 indistinguish-
able 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."
2Smithsonian 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.
5Plotkin 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.
nIn 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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