﻿148 Mr. A. A. Hayes on the Alabama Meteoric Iron. 



witnessing your experiments, I had the same confident belief as 

 yourself, and considered the fact when announced as an impor- 

 tant addition to our knowledge ; one that no subsequent re- 

 searches would set aside. The discussion respecting the origin 

 of the chlorine contained in this meteorite, which occurred at 

 the meeting of the Geological Association in Boston, led me to 

 conclude that a difference of opinion prevailed among scientific 

 men on this subject. The subject was then ably treated, although 

 some suppositions would have hardly been suggested had the 



chemical evidence contained in your memoir been duly con- 

 sidered. 



More lately the Annual Report of Berzelius,* which from the 

 accuracy and impartiality of his remarks has become a stand- 

 ard authority in chemical science, contains a notice of a paper, 

 by Prof. Shepard,f in which the writer attempts to prove by 

 experiment that the hydrochlorates of iron and nickel, exuding 

 from the Alabama meteorite, is not due to the chlorine origin- 

 ally contained in the iron. Thus, what was ten years since es- 

 tablished as a chemical fact, has even now become a subject for 

 doubt. Those who have traced the progress of chemical dis- 

 covery for some past years, must have observed the contradictory 

 statements which have from time to time appeared in relation to 

 the discovery and existence of chlorine in other specimens of 

 meteorites. It is not therefore a matter of surprise that doubts 

 should have been raised regarding the facts you had published. 

 The paper of Prof. Shepard, from the notice taken of it by Ber- 

 zclius, is supposed to contain all the grounds for diversity of be- 

 lief which have been presented ; it is not my intention to exam- 

 ine them here. I will remark, that the detection of chlorine in 

 a mass of kentledge iron which had long been exposed to the 

 action of sea-water, has not any direct bearing on the question 

 of the existence of chlorides of iron and nickel in the Alabama 

 meteorite. Of foreign kentledge, as it arrives here, one twen- 

 tieth part exhibits the same fracture and structure as that of the 

 mass described by Prof. S. It is a common result of cooling 

 iron suddenly in moist sand. The action of the atmosphere, 

 aided by the saline matters of sea-water, or highly crystalline 



* Report for 1843, French edition, p. 170 



can 



