226 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF EEGENTS. 



As directors of a new institution, which we hope will also soon produce im- 

 portant results in agriculture, we shall be content if, in reciprocating your 

 kindness, we can also in any way serve the laudable purposes of your Institu- 

 tion by presenting the results of our own labors and researches. 



Again expressing our thanks, we have the pleasure of sending some of the 

 publications relating to our institution, with the hope that they will be placed 

 in the Smithsonian library. They are the following : 1. Programme of organi- 

 zation of the Carte del Palasio's Agricultural Association. 2. Annual Reports 

 of the Association for 1S59-'GL 3. Agricultural Annals, by Dr. Gaetano Can- 

 toni, professor of agronomy. 



Your most obedient servants, 



Sig. ANTONIO RESCHIN, Direttore. 

 Dr. GAETANO CAN TON I, Pnfessor. 



Office Sup't U. S. Military Genkral Hospitals, 



Memphis, Tennessee, September 5, 1863. 



My Dear Sir : I am in receipt of your letter of the 25th ultimo, by which 

 I learn the pleasing intelligence that the "great Tucson meteorite" is in a fair 

 way of getting to Washington at last. I am sure you will feel proud of it when 

 you see it. 1 knew the " Carlton specimen" was not ours, as I had sent it to 

 Hermosilla before I left Arizona. That sent in by General C. is about 750 

 pounds, while ours is about twice that weight. 



The only history I can give you is a vague one, as there is no written record 

 of its advent in Tucson. The old inhabitants of that place all agree that it 

 was brought there from the Santa Catarina mountains, which lie to the north 

 of Tucson, about _ "nlway between the Rio San Pedro and that town. It was 

 brought in by the military stationed at the old presidio, where it remained until 

 after the withdrawal of the Spanish garrison. It was then taken into town, 

 set up on end, and used as a kind of public anvil for the use of the inhabitants. 

 The smaller one was used in a blacksmith's forge for similar purposes. In 

 1857 I found the large one lying in one of the by-streets half buried in the earth, 

 having evidently been there a considerable time. No person claimed it, so I 

 publicly announced that I would take possession of it in behalf of the Smith- 

 sonian, and forward it whenever an opportunity offered. Mr. Palatine Robinson, 

 near whose house the iron was, assisted me in getting it sent to Hermosilla. 

 There was some expense attending its hoisting into the truck-wagon that took 

 it down to Sonora, which I paid to Mr. R. Mr. Ainsa agreed to take it, or 

 have it taken, to Guaymas, Sonora, for fifty dollars. 



The people of Tucson all agree that a shower of these meteorites fell in the 

 Santa Catarina mountains some two hundred years ago, and I have been told 

 that there were plenty of them remaining in the mountains. I never was in 

 the immediate portion of the mountain range where they report the specimens 

 are to be found, so I cannot vouch for the correctness of their reports. As the 

 country is volcanic almost entirely, I have often thought, from the fact that 

 iron ore is abundant in several of these mountains, that it might have been that 

 masses of iron mineral were reduced to the metallic state by volcanic heat. See 

 in the case of the famous "Planchas de plata " silver mines, some one hundred 

 miles south of the Santa Catarina, where large pieces of pure silver have been 

 found reduced to the pure state by fire, which ha3 left everything in its vicinity 

 in a state of calcination. One piece weighing 1,500 pounds was found and cut 

 in two to allow its removal to the city of Mexico by the Spanish authorities. 

 I think you will find allusion to those interesting and once rich mines in Brantz. 

 Mayer. 



