July, 1914. New Meteorites — Farrington. 9 



from the hot plate and cooled to room temperature. H 2 S was then passed 

 in to saturation and the solution heated very slowly to boiling and 

 boiled for fifteen minutes, the current of H 2 S being continued. A small 

 black precipitate was formed which was filtered off and ignited in a 

 porcelain crucible. The ignited precipitate was dissolved in aqua regia, 

 evaporated three times with HC1, diluted and filtered. The residue, 

 which was very small, was of brownish color, translucent and gritty. 

 It gave no indication of the presence of any undissolved iridium. The 

 filtrate was evaporated nearly to dryness, made alkaline with ammonia 

 and a few flecks of iron filtered off and reprecipitated three times. The 

 filtrate was of a very pale blue color. This filtrate, evaporated to a 

 volume of a few drops in a porcelain crucible, was made acid by HC1 and 

 ammonium chloride and alcohol added to precipitate any platinum. A 

 crystalline, pale yellow precipitate of ammonium platinic chloride was 

 thus obtained. It was filtered on paper, ignited over a Meeker burner 

 and weighed. The weight obtained was also checked by separating the 

 platinum from the crucible and weighing it alone. The ignited precipi- 

 tate had the appearance of a steel-gray film, with a granular surface 

 which looked like a film of very fine sand with coherent grains. It was 

 fairly firm and stood handling with ivory-pointed forceps without break- 

 ing. When boiled with strong HC1, it was unaltered. It dissolved in 

 aqua regia without residue to a brown solution which was nearly opaque 

 when very concentrated. After removal of chlorine and nitrous oxides 

 by six evaporations to dryness with HC1, the solution gave a strong 

 rose color with potassium iodide. The ammonium platinum chloride 

 was reprecipitated, and appeared under the microscope as yellow 

 octahedrons. No platinum vessels or instruments were used in any of 

 these operations. 



The total results of the various operations of analysis were as follows : 



Fe 92 . 03 



Ni 7 . 40 



Co 0.32 



Cu 0.001 



Pt o . 03 



S 0.11 



P 0.11 



Si 0.08 



100.08 

 The analysis shows that the meteorite has the composition charac- 

 teristic of the medium octahedrites, with the addition of a small per- 

 centage of platinum, the largest that has yet been shown to be possessed 

 by any meteorite. It is possible, however, that platinum is a more con- 

 stant ingredient of meteorites than records show, since it is only within 

 the last few years that it has been looked for to any great extent. 



