METEORITES OF NORTH AMERICA. 499 



scarcely be produced at all upon this meteorite. Nevertheless, according to what I had opportunity to see of them, 

 so general a distribution of the iron sulphide seems improbable and I accordingly regarded the outcrop as magnetic 

 pyrites exclusively. 



The borings to be used for the analysis were quite thin and much rusted; the other particles clinging to these 

 gave no indication of their character. The borings were carefully cleansed with weak sulphuric acid, washed, and 

 dried by the boiling heat of the water. 



The mean of three determinations of the specific gravity gave 7.4891, which agrees fairly well with the figures 

 given by Burkart and Rumler. 



The iron was not completely dissolved by acid. The residue, insoluble in hydrochloric acid, after three weigh- 

 ings made in the course of the qualitative analysis, amounted to a mean of 3.78 per cent. 



In the decomposition of the iron there was developed, along with the hydrogen gas, a carbon compound of the 

 same, and the carbon in this was accordingly determined separately. The combustion method of Regnault or Bro- 

 meis was not adapted to this case, since it would be impossible to reduce the iron to ^o fine a powder as would be 

 necessary in order to obtain an exact result, without running the risk of contaminating the meteoric iron with par- 

 ticles of the pulverizing tools. 



The analysis gave the following: 



Fe 85.094 



Xi 9.895 



Co 668 



Cu 030 



Mg 187 



C .' 164 



C(Fe) 334 



X (=schreibereite) 1.649 



Y (=chromite) 1. 482 



S.. 9.845 



100.348 

 The phosphoric metal consists of: Per cent. 



Iron and nickel 1. 103 



Phosphorus 546 



The principal constituents of this meteoric iron are, accordingly, iron and nickel, and approximately 9 atoms of 

 iron to 1 atom of nickel, a ratio such as Rammelsberg found in the magnetic portion of the meteoric stone from Klein- 

 Wenden and such as seems to recur generally in the case of most metepric irons. So great a percentage of iron sul- 

 phide as the above figures of Partsch assumes for this mass is certainly not indicated by the present analysis, the 

 results of which, however, correspond fully with the exterior characteristics of those specimens which I had oppor- 

 tunity to see. Magnetic pyrites occur isolated only in a few places and even large fragments of the borings may be 

 dissolved without developing even a trace of hydrogen sulphide, while it is often visibly present in other small par- 

 ticles. If the mass of the sulphur compound be estimated according to the quantity of sulphur and if the composi- 

 tion of the magnetic pyrites, according to Frankenheim, be assumed as FeS, this will correspond with 2.269 per cent 

 of magnetic pyrites, and, therefore, there remains 83.21 per cent of iron combined with nickel. 

 The meteorite consists of: 



Nickel iron 93. 77 



Magnetic pyrites 2. 27 



Chrome iron 1. 48 



Schreibersite 1. 65 



Carbon... .49 



99.66 



This meteorite, in respect of its iron content, stands quite near to the meteoric iron of Elbogen, but it contains 

 a much greater quantity of foreign ingredients almost 6 per cent whereby the production of the Widmannstatten 

 figures must be made considerably more difficult. 



Xoggerath 8 mentioned the production of Widmannstatten figures on the mass as follows: 

 The figures were brought out by etching; the specimens also showed surfaces upon which certain figures were 

 produced by tarnishing, such as usually occur in the case of steel. The specimens were derived from two different 

 iron masses, both from Mexico, the one from Zacatecas and the other from the neighborhood of Toluca. Both masses, 

 in the produced Widmannstatten figures, show very markedly the peculiar character of meteoric iron; although the 

 markings upon the Toluca mass are finer than those of Zacatecas. The specimens belong to the academic mineral 

 collection at Bonn; Sprecher first permitted their preparation anew in the prescribed manner. 



Bergemann made a further examination of the Zacatecas iron in 1857, as follows: 



I obtained from Burkart a fragment of the Zacatecas meteorite, which I had already examined for the purpose 

 of repeating the analysis. This seemed desirable since Manross had published the results of the analysis of a meteoric 

 iron of unknown locality, which possessed an external resemblance to that of Zacatecas, and even the etched surface 



