338 Meteoric Iron from Tennessee and Alabama. 
quainted since with the Hon. J. Voorhies, senator of Dickson 
County, I learned from him that such mass really existed, that he 
knew the person in whose possession it was, &c. Having thus 
learned that I desired to obtain it, my friend, the senator, did not 
rest till he had secured the specimen and put me in possession of 
it and its history. 
I learned then the following facts from Senator Voorhies, and 
these facts have since been confirmed by other persons. In an- 
swer to a letter which I wrote about this iron to the senator, he 
answered :—“ I have collected all the facts in connection with 
the history of the meteoric mass which I sent you last year, but 
I have not been able to add much to those thatI have already 
communicated. There is no doubt that this mass fell from 
heaven upon the earth, where it shortly after was found, though 
the precise date cannot be recollected. I was told that a noise 
was heard in the air, which was preceded by a vividlight. This 
happened while several persons were laboring in their fields. A 
man who lives at present in this vicinity, was ploughing at the 
time when this took place ; his horse took fright, and ran around 
the field dragging the plough behind him; he recollected this cir- 
cumstance very well, and it enables him to fix the date upon which 
the fall took place. He believes that it was in 1835, on the last 
of July or the first of August, between 2 and 3 o’clock in the 
afternoon,—the sky being cloudless. It fell, before the last 
ploughing, in a cotton field opposite his dwelling. The iron was 
found when the field was ploughed for the last time that season. 
Its fall was not vertical but much inclined, and it travelled with 
great rapidity from west towards the east, as was evident from 
the furrow that had been made in the ground. The original 
shape of the mass was that of a kidney. Its smaller extremity 
was cut off by a blacksmith who yet lives in this vicinity. 
When it was first taken out of the ground, it had the appearance 
as if it had been heated.” 
According to this letter and the information which I collected 
at the place itself, where it fell—the Dickson iron fell, as already 
stated, on the last of July or the first of August, between 2 and 3 
o’clock, p.m. It has the form of a drop, or rather of a depressed 
tear; one side is partly flat and partly concave, while the other 
side is convex,—the form a drop of viscid matter would assume, 
if it fell upon a hard floor. The surface has the appearance of 
