256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



and a half on the usual scale to the maximum hardness in the crystals 

 of true diamond as found by the writer in the Canon Diablo iron,*) may 

 it not be that all meteoric iron contains diamonds at least of the car- 

 bonado variety, only waiting for a sufficiently careful search to reveal 

 them, and that the peculiar toughness of these irons, so imperfectly 

 accounted for by the network of Widmanstiittian plates, may be ex- 

 plained by the presence of the hardest substance known in a state of 

 excessively fine division? 



Glancing now for a moment at the accounts of the several masses 

 of the Cocke County iron, we can see why this same iron has kept 

 coining to light year after year ever since 1840. That it is given 

 a different name each time is not to be wondered at, since the 

 prices paid for meteorites by collectors puts a great premium on 

 names. 



In the first description of the Cocke County iron, in 1840, Dr. Troost 

 says at the opening of his paper : " During my excursions through 

 East Tennessee I had seen small fragments of native iron, and had 

 heard of large masses of it. It being considered a precious metal, all 

 that was known about it, and the place where it was found, were kept 

 a profound secret." t 



He then goes on to state how a few small pieces had come into his 

 hands, and that he believed the original mass weighed two thousand 

 pounds. He also adds that he went to Buncombe County, North 

 Carolina, where there was said to be a great quantity of it, but found 

 none. 



Two years later Professor C. U. Shepard described a mass in the 

 museum of the East Tennessee University at Knoxville, and quoted 

 a letter in regard to it : — 



" It is a portion of an irregular mass, which was given me about 

 five years since. The mass, as you have been informed, was discovered 

 in Cocke County. The proprietor resisted for some time all impor- 

 tunities to discover where it was ; believing it to be some metal of 

 great value. I assured his agent that it was native iron, and probably 

 meteoric. After he became satisfied of its character, many individuals 

 examined it, in place. It was entirely insulated on the ground, and 

 weighed about seven or eight hundred pounds. Specimens were ob- 

 tained from it and dispersed through the country. 



" It was my intention to have purchased and transported the entire 



* These Proceedings, Vol. XXIX. p. 204. 



t American Journal of Science, 1st ser., Vol. XXXVIII. p. 250. 



