‘and Masses of Meteoric Iron, &c. 15 
magnetic needle. It is a rounded oval about a quarter of an 
inch long, and a little less in breadth, and seems intended to 
have been set in a ring. One end isa little broken off. One 
side is a little more convex than the other, on which a small. 
elliptic slab of jasper of a reddish brown is let in; and on this 
a star and a moon by the side of it are engraved. As the 
ancients considered substances fallen from heaven (Betylia) as 
something sacred (upon which subject see the works of Muin- 
ter and Fred. von Dalberg), and as on several coins, &c. the 
meteoric origin has been indicated by a start, it probably 
indicates that this iron féll down with a fiery meteor of the 
apparent size of the moon. Now it seems more probable that 
it is a part of the iron which fell in Lucania, about fifty-six or 
fifty-two years before Christ, as mentioned by Pliny, Hist. 
Nat. ii. 57, than of any other: Ist, because it was close to 
Pompeii; 2dly, because no other fall of iron is mentioned by 
any more ancient author ; and 3rdly, because the destruction of 
Pompeii occurred only about 135 years after that fall, which 
would therefore be still in the recollection of the people. 
C. Masses of Native Iron, the Origin of which is uncertain, 
being different in Texture from the former, and containing 
no Nickel. 
*'The large mass at Aix-la-Chapelle, containing a little 
arsenic, silicium, carbon, and sulphur. It may possibly be the 
produce of the furnace; against which hypothesis, however, 
many objections might be made. 
* A mass found in the Milanese, on the Collina di Brianza, 
near Villa, weighing between 200 and 300 pounds, of very pure 
iron, with a small trace of manganese and sulphur. ‘The tex- 
ture is spongy, and the iron whiter than usual, and exceed- 
ingly malleable; on which account it cannot be considered as 
a product of the furnace. 
A mass found near Gross-Kamsdorf, in 100 parts of which 
Klaproth found 6 of lead and 1°50 of copper. The frag- 
ment possessed by him (a part of which is now in the cabinet 
of natural history at Vienna), as well as the specimen in the mu- 
seum at Paris, may be considered genuine; but the fragments 
shown at Freiburg and Dresden are unquestionably spurious. 
Some other masses (for instance, that found near Florac) 
must be considered as products of artificial fusion. 
+ To this method of indicating the fall of a fiery meteor, the Chinese ex- 
pression, “A star fell to the earth, and turned into a stone,” bears a close 
analogy. 
IV. Fallen 
