METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. 85 



With a view to obtain all the information possible in relation to this interesting meteoric iron, Mr. Herrick addressed 

 a letter of inquiry to Dr. Pierce, which brought the following particulars. He says: "In the year 1819, I procured 

 some two or three masses of native iron (as it appeared to be) from the fanner who first turned it over with his plow in a 

 field near the north line of the town of Burlington, Otsego County, New York. These consisted of remnants of an entire 

 mass originally supposed to weigh between 100 and 200 pounds and found several years before. Before I had 

 any knowledge of its existence, it had been in the forge of a country blacksmith and the whole heated in order to 

 enable Him to cut off portions for the manufacture of such articles as the farmer most needed. The smith assured me 

 that he had never worked stronger, tougher, or purer iron; that it made the best horseshoe naila. All the fragments 

 that remained I immediately secured, and presented them to Professor Hadley, whose lectures I was then attending. 

 These were in two or three irregular masses, in all some 8 to 12 pounds, with the marks of the chisel used in 

 cutting while in a heated state. In conversation with the fanner who found the original mass, I could only learn that 

 in plowing the field he found a stone, very heavy, rusty on the top, which lay above the surface. From its great 

 specific gravity he was induced to examine it more particularly, and thinking it might be iron he carried it to his 

 blacksmith, who, finding it iron, had worked up the most of it into horseshoe nails, etc., as the farmer needed. The 

 latter told me that he had seen several small specimens of what appeared to be similar whilst plowing the same field, 

 but a diligent search made by me at the time proved fruitless in discovering any other specimens, the field being at 

 that time in meadow. 



" It was the opinion of Professor Hadley, on the first examination, that it was of meteoric origin. Why it was not 

 completely buried in falling may be accounted for by the fact that the ground on which it was found was hard and 

 strong." 



Measures have been taken to secure as much of this interesting mass as can now be obtained for the mineralogical 

 collection in Yale College. 



Further description was given later by Shepard * as follows: 



This mass (originally 150 pounds in weight) was described by Professor Silliman, jr. It was ploughed up by a 

 fanner, near the north line of the town, sometime prior to 1819. Portions were cut from it, from time to time, by the 

 discoverer's blacksmith for agricultural uses, until its weight was diminished to about a dozen pounds, when it fortu- 

 nately fell into the hands of Professor Hadley of Geneva, New York, to whom I am indebted for a conical lump weigh- 

 ing 9 pounds, which must have formed a somewhat pointed extremity of the original mass. From the base of this a 

 slice was taken, leaving a lump of five pounds of the annexed form. Its sides show, for the most part, the natural 

 crust of the iron, but where this is not the case the surface has been cut and polished, or is coarsely crystalline with 

 large tetrahedral and subhackley faces, occasioned by the breaking off of what was apparently projecting prongs. Its 

 polished faces show a very high luster, with a color of nearly the same whiteness as German silver. Held at a proper 

 angle, they discover very distinctly the same crystalline characters which are still more distinctly brought out by the 

 action of acids. The etched surface is illustrated by the accompanying figure. The pattern is strikingly peculiar, 

 as well as beautiful. The bright shining veins, which resist the action of the acid, are rarely nearer together than 

 fa or -fa of an inch, and these in place of being continuous are interrupted at frequent intervals. In their course also, 

 they frequently exhibit little triangular enlargements, the sides of the triangles curving inward. The surface included 

 between the shining lines and which forms at least nine-tenths of the whole, is everywhere finely freckled, as if depend- 

 ing upon granular texture and even bears some analogy to what is familiarly known as crystallized tin, or Moiree 

 mttallique. 



Its hardness is very unusual, no iron with which I am acquainted offering on the whole so much resistance to the 

 operation of slitting. Mr. Rockwell gives as its composition, iron 92.291, and nickel 8.146. My own result in a single 

 analysis is as follows: 



Iron 95.200 



Nickel 2.125 



Insoluble 500 



Sulphur and loss 2. 175 



100.000 

 Clark 4 obtained the following composition by analysis: 



Fe Xi X S and loss 



89.752 8.897 0.625 0.703 =99.977 



He also found traces of copper and manganese; the first may have come from the tools 

 with which the chip was obtained. 



Shepard e states that "in cutting a slice from the iron a single, very symmetrical, drop- 

 shaped cavity more than half an inch in diameter was disclosed which communicated by a 

 minute opening with the surface. Its walls are almost perfectly smooth and coated by a 

 brownish-black powder, not yet examined." 



Reichenbach 9 noted the presenc* of cylindrical or elongated cone-shaped masses in this 

 iron. He compared their form to that of belemnites or to the filling of auger holes and states 

 that they often lie close together hi parallel arrangement and hi large numbers. 



