362 On Chlorine in Meteoric Iron. 
in the soil on land, at no great distance from my house. Its sur- 
face exhibited in several places the blebby efflorescences which I 
expected to find, and these on being removed and boiled in water 
afforded undoubted evidence of chlorine. 
It will be easy to prosecute this inquiry into a greater number 
of details, and I shall follow it up still farther, as opportunities 
may offer; but I think the foregoing cases are calculated to place 
the meteoric origin of chlorine, in at least a doubtful point of view. 
The sources of chlorine to the mass of kentledge which was 
buried in the harbor were undoubtedly the chlorides of sea-wa- 
ter ; while in the other instances, the chlorine may be attributed 
to that universally diffused haloid salt, the chloride of calcium 
(muriate of lime). The decomposition in both cases, may be the 
result of electrolytic action, in which carbon and iron are the de- 
composing elements, the latter being the positive electrode, upon 
which the chlorine is evolved, and with which it combines as 
fast as the electrolysis proceeds. 
_ It is easy to see that the composition of meteoric irons, and the 
situations in which they are frequently placed, in and upon the 
soils of our earth, might enable them to obtain chlorine in a man- 
ner similar to that supposed in the two last mentioned cases. 
Additional Remarks on the New Haven mass of Keniledge 
Tron.—A coarse crystalline texture was developed throughout the 
prism, if we except about one and three fourths of an inch upon 
one side, in which a sub-porous, fine granular structure exists; but 
near its line of junction with the coarser texture, an insensib 
gradation between the two structures is visible. The crystalline 
portion is analogous to that of the coarsely meteoric irons of 
North Carolina and Tennessee. When first broken, its structure 
reminds one most forcibly of metallic antimony ; but after a few 
months exposure to the air, the tendency to oblique tetrahedra 
cleavage becomes more striking. When a large fragment of it 
is broken so as to present a fracture across the lamin, the fol- 
lowing structure becomes visible: two sets of laminee appeal, 
which alternate with each other in a regular order ; the thickest 
of these are about one tenth of a line, the thinnest one twentieth 
of ali 
of the lan 
moreover observe in any considerable fragment, that layers of 
both kinds frequently intersect the main series at angles 60° 
. The latter are foliated perpendicularly to the breadth 
ie 
laminee ; the former in coincidence with their breadth. We © 
