70 PHYSIOGRAPHY. 



Native Iron. 



Ductile. Hardness=4*5. Sp.gr. =7'318, a partially 

 oxidated fragment of the crystal from Guilford co. (N. C.) 



Compound Varieties. Massive : composition not ob- 

 servable, excepting where it is traversed by Plumbago ; in 

 which case it separates into irregular, oblique tetrahedrons. 

 Sp. gr. = 6'72, much intermingled with Plumbago, from 

 Canaan, (Conn.) 



1. Analysis^ 



By KL.APROTH. By GODON DE ST. MEMIN. BySHEPARD, 

 fr. Ramsdorf. fr. La Bowiche. fr. Canaan, 



Iron . . 92-50 , , 94-50 . . . 91-80 



Lead . 6-00 . 00 . . . 0-00 



Copper . 1-50 . . 00 . . . 00 



Carbon . 0-00 . . 4-00 mechanically mixed 7'00 



Phosphoric acid 0-00 . . 1-20 . . 0-00 



2. It is not perfectly certain that the Native Iron of Kamsdorf, in Sax- 

 ony, is of terrestrial origin, though it is said to have occurred in a mass 

 of Limonite, associated with Spathic Iron and Heavy Spar. Other local- 

 ities mentioned in Saxony, are Steinbach and Eibestock; at the former it 

 is attended by brown Garnet, and at the latter, it is in a vein. A stalactitic 

 mass, covered by fibrous Limonite and Quartz, was met with in a vein 

 traversing the mountain of gneiss called Guile, near Grenoble in France. 

 The Native Steel, from La Bowiche in France, engaged in an iron slag, 

 appears to be of a secondary formation, owing to the combustion of a coal 

 seam. 



The United States have afforded examples of Native Iron, of the most 

 incontestibly terrestrial origin. The variety from Canaan, (Conn.) was 

 found attached in the form of a vein or plate, two inches thick, to a mass 

 of mica-slate rock, upon a primitive mountain; that from Guildford co. 

 (North Carolina) consists of a single octahedral crystal, weighing about 

 seven ounces, which is reported to have been detached from a mass that 

 weighed twenty-eight pounds, and which was wrought into nails, by a 

 black-smith.* 



* The American specimens of Native Jron, here alluded to, are in the 

 cabinet of Yale College. 



