OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



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thin edge was held in the vice, the mass could be readily bent back 

 and forth with the hand, and it invariably broke like a soft semi- 

 solid material. Moreover, the iron was so malleable that it could be 

 readily rolled out into thin ribbon in the cold. Such extreme 

 malleability and the peculiar fracture separate this iron from all 

 others with which I am familiar. 



One would naturally expect from the foregoing characteristics that 

 the Stutsman County iron would show no crystalline structure when 

 acted on by dilute nitric acid, but when the cut surface was polished 

 and etched, it gave typical Widmanstattian figures, showing how- 



FiG. 3. 



ever plates not over one millimeter thick, closely interlaced, frequently 

 bent, and occasionally intersected by linear inclusions of troilite two 

 or three centimeters long. The figures closely resemble those of 

 Oldham County, and are not unlike those of Obernkirchen, being so 

 closely interlaced as to appear somewhat confused until carefully 

 examined. On first etching the iron, there is a blackening of the sur- 

 face, as in the case of steel, which gives for the moment prominence to 

 the figures ; the superficial deposit is easily rubbed off, however, when 

 the surface appears bright and shining, but the figures indistinct. 

 Figure 3 is copied from a drawing of the etched surface, and shows 

 at one end the peculiar fracture already described. 



I have not yet been able to make a thorough examination of the 



