GEOLOGY. 299 



6,000 shares. In 1849, $60,000 was divided among the shareholders ; in 

 1850, $84,000; in 1851, 860,000, and in 1852, $60,000 more will be 

 divided. In another view, shares which cost $18 have received 

 back in dividends $34 and are worth $100 in the market. 



The Northwest Mining Company ranks next in value. Mining was 

 here commenced in earnest in 1849. About $80,000 have been paid in. 

 In 1849 the net proceeds from the sale of copper amounted to some 

 $5,000 ; in 1850 to about $32,000 ; and in 1851 to something over 

 s.30,000. This company owns a large tract of mineral' territory, upon 

 which two valuable veins have been opened and a number of others 

 discovered. The property owned by this company is of immense 

 value, and magnificent fortunes will in a few years doubtless be 

 realized from it. 



The Minnesota Mining Company is located near the Ontonogon 

 River, some forty miles westward of the two preceding. Immense 

 blocks of pure copper are taken from this mine. It commenced in the 

 autumn of 1848, and has a capital paid in of some $90,000, or $30 on a 

 share there being but three thousand shares. They command $150 

 in the market. A large dividend will, we think, be paid from the 

 earnings this year. 



The gain reaped from the workings of a successful mine is free- 

 quently 500 per cent. Shares in the Boston and Pittsburg Company, 

 which cost $18 50, sell for $100. In the Minnesota for $30 the owner 

 can now receive $150. The Northwest shares will probably increase 

 100 per cent, in value in a year. 



NEW METEORITES. 



PROFESSOR SHEPARD, of Amherst College, has recently added to 

 his collection of meteorites a very valuable specimen, which is des- 

 cribed as a mass of compact malleable iron weighing 178 pounds, of an 

 elongated ovoidal form, covered with the usual indentations, and 

 exhibiting the characteristic crystalline figures. It was discovered on 

 the Great Lion River, in the Nemaqua Land, in South Africa, and, 

 having beeen transported several hundred miles in wagons to the 

 Cape of Good Hope, was shipped to London. Prof. Shepard, being 

 fortunately in that city at the time of its arrival, immediately entered 

 into negotiations to obtain it, and with considerable difficulty, succeed- 

 ed. He also has another specimen from Newberry, South Carolina, 

 weighing fifty-eight pounds. His collection of extra terrestrial sub- 

 stances weighs more than 350 pounds, and includes two hundred 

 specimens from more than a hundred different localities. 



Prof. Root in a communication to Silliman's Journal, November, 

 1852, states, that a mass of malleable iron weighing nine pounds, was 

 found last fall in digging a ditch on a farm near the free bridge on the 

 Cayuga side of the Seneca River. It was drop shaped, about four 

 inches in diameter and seven inches in length. When found it was 

 coated with oxide of iron. The surface was uneven, and some of the 

 prominent parts were terminated bv planes of octahedral crystals. It 

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