Meteoric Iron from Tennessee and Alabama. 339 
smooth cast iron. It is surrounded by a zone or girdle of a 
metal of a whiter color, and of a more compact texture, possessing 
a more or less bright polish, which seems to have been produced 
by a more fluid part of the metal, squeezed through the pores of 
the already solid iron, by pressure probably occasioned by the fall, 
which spreading itself as a thin cover over the surface, formed 
the zone or girdle mentioned above. 
Fig. 1. 
In the above drawing, fig. 1, I give a figure of the mass, in 
half its natural size, representing its superior or convex surface A, 
and the zone or girdle of white metal BBB. At C isa kind of 
indenture, which could have been formed by nature only ina 
viscid matter; occasioned by contraction during refrigeration. 
Fig. 2 represents a horizontal section of the mass at line a, 6, fig. 
1, half its natural size. 
