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Met Name

Met Type

Thin Sections

66 kg.   Iron, IVB

TKW 136 kg. Fall not observed. Found 1793, Dutch Cape Colony, South Africa.


Zsolt writes:

Here is a fantastic image of Main Mass of the Cape of Good Hope meteorite of Hungarian NHM Collection (66 kgr).

History:

A mass of about 300 pounds (135 kg) was found in the Dutch Cape Colony on a plain east of the Great Fish River close enough to the coast so that it was assumed to be part of a ship's anchor carried away by the Kaffers (Barrow 1801 : 225-26). According to Dankelmann (1805) the mass had been transported to Capetown by the soldierCanyon Diablo (Schertz) - Cape of Good Hope 407 adventurer Carl Sternberg, from whom Dankelmann acquired a fragment of 84 kg on behalf of the Dutch government. Sternberg told that he had found the mass himself in 1793 about five miles from the coast between two small rivers, Karega and Gasoga. Although Dankelmann assumed these to be nonexistent, they may be located on Barrow's map (1801: volume 1) as Kareeka and Kasowka, about 7 50 km straight east of Cape of Good Hope, near the present-day Port Alfred.

The mass received by van Marum (1804) was falttened fragment of 84 kg with the dimensions 64x41x9-12 cm. It was corroded and covered by rounded cavities, 4-9 cm in diameter and 1-3 cm deep, as is well shown in two lithograps reproduced by Baumhauer (1867). No fusion crust or heat-affected rim zone are preserved. An etched slice of U.S.N.M no. 985 shows characteristic diffuse streaks of the group of IVB ataxites.

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