M 



tind in consequence of the account he gave, the Governor- General of 

 the province ordered it to be brought down to Bahia. A stout waggon 

 or truck was conveyed to the spot ; and after three days' labour, the 

 mass was lifted upon it, and by the force of forty pair of oxen was 

 removed about a hundred yards, as far as the bed of a neighbouring 

 rivulet, but there relinquished. And there it was found again by 

 Mr. Mornay in January 1811 ; but the river was at that time quite 

 dry, and frequently is so. 



The mass is about seven feet in length, its breadth four, with a 

 thickness of about two feet. Its form is very irregular, with various 

 cavities, especially on the under side ; but the author estimated its 

 capacity on the spot to be full twenty- eight cubic feet ; and hence 

 the weight is conceived to be about 14,000 pounds. 



Its colour is that of a dark chesnut, rather glossy on the top and 

 sides ; on its underside it is covered with a crust of oxide in thick 

 flakes. 



In some of the smaller cavities were imbedded quartz pebbles, too 

 large to be taken out without being broken. The block in situ ap- 

 peared to be highly magnetic, having its north pole lying in a N.E. 

 direction ; but the fragments separated from it were not found by 

 Mr. Mornay to possess magnetic poles. In detaching these frag- 

 ments he experienced very considerable difficulty, although aided in 

 some measure by a crystalline texture, which gave direction to the 

 fractures, and was visible in all the specimens he could obtain with 

 a sledge-hammer carried for that purpose. 



Having dissolved a small portion of this iron, and examined the 

 solution by such re-agents as he happened to possess, he thought 

 that he discovered the presence of nickel, but very doubtfully, and 

 in very small quantity. He also made a similar examination of 

 some fragments from a bed of oxide found where the mass had been 

 originally discovered, and with a similar result as to an apparent 

 trace of nickel. 



The surface of the country was at this spot covered with a coarse 

 gravel to the depth of ten or fifteen feet above the level of the rock 

 of granite, which in general prevails. 



The latitude of the place was estimated by Mr. Mornay to be 

 10 20' S., and the longitude about 33' 15" W. of Bahia. 



To the southward were found prismatic fragments, and balls from 

 a few inches to nearly three feet in diameter, supposed to be basalt ; 

 and beyond these, at the distance of forty leagues, a range of sand- 

 stone hills, from which there extends a sandy plain with occasional 

 elevations, all about twenty fathoms in height, as if they were the 

 remains of some more elevated plain, of which certain parts were 

 more durable from a cement of iron that appears in the beds of most 

 of them. A peculiar aspect is also given to this plain by other 

 smaller hillocks, which are very numerous, and are the nests of the 

 white ants : these are conical in their outline, but almost invariably 

 elliptic at their base. 



The soil of the valleys is observed to be impregnated with sea- 



