On American Meteoric Iron. 371 



in the black soils of Barbadoes ; the state and proportion of the ve- 

 getable matter in your soils generally ; the question of the exhaust- 

 ing powers of different crops ; and the state of the soil in such lands 

 as have been under cultivation uninterruptedly for a long series of 

 years ; the effects of irrigation as a fertilizing means ; the peculiar 

 effects of different kinds of manures ; besides other and hardly less 

 interesting topics. Having occupied so much of your time, I can 

 merely allude to these at present. Perhaps, at some other meeting, 

 should it be your wish, I may undertake the consideration of one or 

 more of them, provided my official duties allow me leisure, and I 

 shall have it in my power to collect, in the interim, information such 

 as will enable me to bring them before you with some chance of 

 being useful, and especially in the way of opening and exciting in- 

 quiry (a word in regard to the attainment of knowledge of admirable 

 import), without which, systematically conducted, we have no right 

 to expect any great improvement in agriculture, whether considered 

 as an art or a science, or, indeed, in any other departments of the 

 arts or sciences. 



Description of three varieties of Meteoric Iron. — 1. From near 

 Carthage, Smith County^ Tennessee ; 2. From Jackson 

 County, Tennessee ; 3. From near Smithland, Livingston 

 County, Kentucky. By G. Troost, Professor in the Uni- 

 versity of Nashville, Tennessee. 



1. Meteoric Iron from Carthage. Smith County, Tennessee. — In 

 vol. xlix, p. 336, of this Journal, I published a description of four 

 varieties of meteoric iron, one of which was of the highest interest, 

 as its fall had been witnessed by several persons. My collection has 

 since been augmented by three other newly discovered specimens. A 

 friend of mine, Samuel Morgan of Nashville, learned, some time in 

 1844, that a large mass of metal had been found in Smith County, 

 near Carthage, Tennessee, which was considered as silver ; and a 

 small sample of it was given to him, which we both recognised imme- 

 diately as meteoric iron. Mr Morgan immediately endeavoured to 

 learn its history, and to get possession of it ; but, as I observed above, 

 it being considered a precious metal, he failed, and every thing was 

 enveloped in mystery, till it became known that it was not silver. 

 He learned, then, that it was in the possession of a blacksmith ; that 

 it was found about a mile from Carthage, the County seat of Smith 

 County, and Mr M. obtained it last year for a reasonable price. It 

 weighed 280 pounds — an oblong shapeless mass, its surface shewing 

 here and there some projecting octahedral crystals. A piece of it waa 

 sawed off weighing 39 pounds, which now forms one of the ornaments 

 of my cabinet. This magnificent specimen has a polished surface of 



