THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 

 AND JOURNAL. 



D 



30^'' JUNE 1825. 



LXIV. On the largest Mass of Meteoric Iron which has yet 

 been discovered in Europe. By Dr. J. Nceggerath, and 

 Dr. G. BiscHOF, of Bonn.* 



R. NCEGGERx\TH, on his former travels in tlie Eifel, 

 had been informed from various quarters, that in the 

 neighbourhood of Bitburg, and close to the mill of Albach, 

 there lay a mass of solid and perfectly malleable iron of se- 

 veral thousand pounds weight ; but that it was not known how 

 it came there. In the course of his travels, however, he never 

 passed this spot. During the visit of Dr. Chladni at Bonii, 

 in the year 1817, this subject was again brought under consi- 

 deration ; and as it was thought deserving of further inquir}', 

 application was made to the Royal Provincial Counsellor 

 M. Simonis, for information respecting it. That gentleman 

 returned the following answer, dated from Bitburg, the 19th 

 December 1817: 



" About ten years ago a miller at Albach, when widening a 

 road, discovered a square mass of iron weighing 3300 pounds, 

 which was afterwards sold to a smelter for 1 6 crowns and a half. 

 Before its removal, an engineer in the French service came from 

 Luxenburg to examine it. I accompanied him to the spot, 

 and we struck off' several pieces with a hammer, which the 

 engineer took with him. The iron was by no means brittle, 

 but could only be separated from the mass in thin flakes. 

 On examining the vicinity, I found that the arable fields, 

 to the extent of several acres, were covered with iron slag, 

 which convinced me that in former times a smelting furnace 

 must have been worked near this spot ; and that the mass of iron 

 above mentioned must have had its origin from that circum- 

 stance. As no running water is to be found on the hill, the 

 furnace nnisti)ave been worked bv wind, or by horses, or men." 

 Chladni, in conseriuencc of these notices, was led to class 

 tliis mass among the problematical meteoric irons. {Jlde his 

 Treatise on Fire-balls, &c. Vienna, 1819, p. 353.) But as 



* From Scliweiggcr's Joitntnl, N. R. Band xiii. p. 1. 

 \'u\. r,r>. No. '.i2r,. Jnnr 1825. '.i E M. Sinionis's 



