336 Meteoric Iron from Tennessee and Alabama. 
indispensable to the movements of government, and to the suc- 
cess of individual enterprise, alike essential to the material inter- 
est and to the social progress of nations. ‘The real statesmen of 
our country clearly perceive that scientific investigations, con- 
ducted by men specially qualified for such pursuits, are equally 
necessary here as in the older dynasties of Europe, and that to 
foster ignorance by withholding the means to increase and diffuse 
knowledge, is the readiest way to spread over our land the dark- 
ness and despotism of the middle ages. 
Arr. VIIL—(1.) Description of a mass of Meteoric Iron, which 
fell near Charlotte, Dickson County, Tennessee, in 1835; 
(2.) Of a mass of Meteoric Iron discovered in De Kalb 
County, Tenn. ; (3.) Of a mass discovered in Green County, 
Tenn.; (4.) Of a mass discovered in Walker County, Ala- 
bama ; by G. Troost, Prof. Chem. and Min. in University of 
Nashville, Tenn. ; Member Phil. Soc., and Acad. Nat. Sci. * 
Philad. ; of the Geol. Soc. of France, Se: &e. 
In a former memoir on meteoric iron,* I mentioned that be- 
sides the mass there described, other masses of meteoric iron had 
been found in the state of Tennessee,—one near Charlotte, in 
Dickson County, and another in De Kalb County, a few miles 
west of Cany Fork, near the road from Liberty to the ferry on 
that river. When I wrote that memoir, I had seen the latter 
mass, but the owner thinking that it was gold, platinum, or sil- 
ver, valued it at an extravagant price; having since been con- 
vinced that it did not belong to these precious metals, I obtained 
it for a moderate price. 
The mass from Charlotte, the county seat of Dickson County, 
is now also in my possession. I am indebted for it to the kind- 
ness of my friend, the Hon. J. Voorhies, senator from Dickson 
County in the legistatare of Tennessee. 7 
I learned after the publication of the above mentioned memoir, 
that another mass of this iron had been found in Green County, 
Tennessee, having been ploughed up in a field twelve miles from 
Greenfield ; this also is in my cabinet, and for it 1 am indebted 
* See this Journal, Vol. xxxrv, p. 250. 
