Sir R. I. Murchison on a supposed Aerolite. 383 



visited by Dr. Shepard, Professor in the University College, Am- 

 herst, United States, whose researches on meteorites are widely 

 known, and who has furnished an able classification of them by 

 which they are divided into the two great classes of stony and me- 

 tallic. Having carefully examined the specimen, Dr. Shepard ex- 

 pressed his decided belief that it was a true meteorite, and the next 

 day wrote to me the following account of it ; at the same time re- 

 ferring me most obligingly to a series of interesting publications on 

 the subject as printed in America and Europe*: — 



" Concerning the highly interesting mineral mass, lately found 

 enclosed in the trunk of a tree, and of which you have done me the 

 honour to ask my opinion, I beg leave to observe, that I have no 

 hesitation in pronouncing it to be a true meteoric stone. 



" Aside from the difficulty of otherwise accounting for it, under 

 the circumstances in which it is found, the mass presents those 

 peculiar traits that are regarded as characteristic of meteorites. It 

 has, for example, a fused, vitrified black coating, which is quite con- 

 tinuous over a considerable part of the mass, and contains several 

 grains and imbedded nodular and vein-like portions of metallic iron, 

 in which I understand nickel and cobalt have been detected. 



" The general character of the body of the stone is indeed pecu- 

 liar ; and as a whole, unlike any one I have yet seen ; it being prin- 

 cipally made up of a dull greyish yellow, peridotic mineral, which I 

 have nowhere met with among these productions, except in the 

 Hommoney Creek meteoric iron mass, and which exists in it only in 

 a very limited quantity. It is singular to remark also, that the 

 stone under notice strikingly resembles in size, shape and surface, 

 the iron above alluded to. 



" The absence of the black, slaggy coating on one of the broad 

 surfaces of the stone, may arise from its having been broken away, 

 by the violence to which it must have been subjected in entering 

 the tree ; for it appears to have buried itself completely at its con- 

 tact, an operation which would probably have been impossible, in 

 the case of a stone, but for its wedge-shaped configuration, and the 

 coincidence of one of its edges with the vertical fibres of the wood." 



In reply to a question I subsequently put to Dr. Shepard as to 



* Dr. Shepard's numerous memoirs on meteorites are all to be found in the 

 volumes of the American Journal of Science and Art, and in the same work the 

 reader will find not only the general classification of these bodies by this author, 

 who possesses a collection from 103 locahties, Ijut also essays on the same subject 

 by his countrymen Dr. Troost, Professor Sillinian, jun., and Dr. Clark. 



In our own country, Mr. Brayley published some years ago a comprehensive 

 view of this subject in the Philosophical Magazine, and recently Mr. Greg has in 

 the same publication put together all the previous and additional materials, with 

 tables showing the geographical distribution of meteorites. Among the well- 

 recorded examples of the fall of metalliferous meteorites, no one is more remark- 

 able than that which happened in the year 1851, about sixteen leagues S.E. of 

 Barcelona in Spain. In describing that phenomenon, Dr. Joaquim Balcells, Pro- 

 fessor of Natural Sciences at Barcelona, has illustrated the subject with much 

 erudition, whilst his theoretical views are ingenious in his endeavour to explain 

 how meteorites are derived from the moon. 



