594 COSMOS. 



partly in chemical combination with iron, and therefore ana- 

 logous to many kinds of bar-iron. The principal mass of the 

 meteoric iron contains also always a peculiar combination of 

 phospliorus luith iron and nickel, which on the solution of the 

 iron in hydrochloric acid, remains in the form of silver- white, 

 microscopic, crystalline needles and lamina. 



** B. The meteoric stones, properly so called, it is customary 

 to divide into two classes, according to their external appear- 

 ance. The stones of one class present, in an apparently 

 homogeneous mass, grains and splinters of meteoric iron, which 

 are attracted by the magnet, and possess entirely the nature of 

 that found in larger masses. To this class belong, for example, 

 the stones of Blansko, Lissa, Aigle, Ensisheim, Chantonnay, 

 Klein-Wenden near Nordhausen, Erxleben, Chateau-Renard, 

 and Utrecht. The stones of the other class are free from 

 metallic admixtures, and present rather a crystalline mixture 

 of different mineral substances ; as, for example, the stones of 

 Juvenas, Lontalax, and Stannern. 



" Since the time that Howard, Klaproth, and Vauquelin 

 first instituted the chemical investigation of meteoric stones, 

 for a long time no regard was paid to the fact that they might 

 be mixtures of separate combinations ; but they were examined 

 only for their total constituents, and it was considered suffi- 

 cient to draw out the iron by the magnet. After Mohs had 

 directed attention to the analogy between some aerolites and 

 certain telluric rocks, Nordenskjold endeavoured to prove that 

 the aerolite of Lontalax in Finland consisted of olivin, leucite, 

 and magnetic iron ore; but the beautiful observations of 

 Gustav Rose first placed it beyond doubt that the stone of Ju- 

 venas consists of magnetic pyrites, augite, and a feldspar, very 

 much resembling labrador. Guided by this, Berzelius endea- 

 voured, in a more extended essay (Kongl. VetensJcaps-Acade- 

 miens Handling ar fur 1834), to eliminate also by chemical 

 methods the mineralogical nature of the separate combina- 



