Are the „Americanites” tektites?

In 1914 the moldavites, australites and billitonites had already been known for many years and the queenstownites had just been discovered and recognised as tektites. In this year A. Eppler communicated that he had received a sphere of obsidian, ± 17 mm in diameter from South America, the place of origin not being known. Both according to his opinion and to that of Professor Weinschenk, it should be ascribed to the tektites. He arrived at this conclusion mainly by the external appearance of the pebble, that showed the same sculpture and lustre as that of most tektites. Otherwise, however, it had a marked resemblance to the terrestrial obsidian. Eppler compared his tektite to South American obsidians and found them to possess the same brownish grey colour in transmitted light, the same refractive index and practically the same specific gravity (the tektite 2.352, the obsidian 2.346). In 1921 Lleras described similar spheres of glass from Columbia; he also considered them to be tektites. Later, however, (1925) in a detailed publication he defended the view of a terrestrial, volcanic origin of these rocks. After the appearance of Stutzer’s paper Lleras (1929) was again converted to the opinion, that they were tektites.