  We give an approach to studying the critical behaviour that has been observed
in numerical studies of gravitational collapse. These studies suggest, among
other things, that black holes initially form with infinitesimal mass. We show
generally how a black hole mass formula can be extracted from a transcendental
equation.
  Using our approach, we give an explicit one parameter set of metrics that are
asymptotically flat and describe the collapse of apriori unspecified but
physical matter fields. The black hole mass formula obtained from this metric
exhibits a mass gap - that is, at the onset of black hole formation, the mass
is finite and non-zero.
