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» . Native and Meteoric ae 367 
ciently large to enable him to gratify the very rational curiosity 
he possessed of working under the hammer, an iron which he 
was satisfied differed very considerably from the metallic iron of 
the arts. 
The mass was found in the town of Scriba, four miles east of 
wego, about five years ago, by a man by the name of Julius 
ust, who was in the habit of furnishing Mr. Rarusun with 
charcoal. It was discovered in digging up the soil, which had 
been the foundation of an old coal-pit. Its weight is about 
eight pounds; and its general aspect, of which some idea may 
be formed by the annexed figure, is wholly opposed to the sup- 
position of its being a product of the forge. Indeed no iron 
works of any description have ever existed in this region. It 
approaches the cube in shape, though all its angles and edges are 
more or less rounded, while its upper surface is sub-spherical, and 
nearly smooth. The sides and base, on the contrary, are much 
pitted by irregular concavities, which give a surface most resem- 
bling on the whole, the ripple produced on a calm sea by the 
first access of a gentle breeze. The arrangement of these de- 
pressions and elevations upon the sides of the mass, is such, as 
to give obscure lines or waves parallel to the edges of the base. 
This appearance taken along with the more flattened shape of 
the base, led Mr. Rarupun to imagine that the mass had fallen 
from the heavens, in a plastic condition, and that its present fig- 
ure is partly accounted for, by its striking the earth on that side, 
which is here described as the base. 
With the exception of a few impressions made in two or three 
Places by the cold chisel, for the purpose of detaching little frag- 
ments by Mr. R. there is no trace pertaining to it, of any human 
Workmanship. But its most singular feature consists in its hav- 
ing several re-entering angles, (see 1 and 2,) about its edges, 
which are closely packed with a hard, black and brittle ore, whose 
color and lustre approach to those of Borrowdale plumbago. No 
Part of the specimen exhibited any accumulation of rust. — Its 
color, where a fresh surface had not been exposed, was iron-black. 
The fresh surface is light steel-grey. The texture is exceedingly 
fine, and when polished, the lustre is high. ty 
On my return to New Haven, I employed a skilful machinist, 
who had been accustomed to. the slitting of meteoric iron, to 
make a number of sections from one side of the mass. In per- 
