Report on Meteorites. ' 75 



er end, the finder (Mr. Speaks) placed his foot to rest, while 

 abroad on a hunting excursion. Its unusual appearance attracted 

 his attention, and led him to remove it to his house as something 

 valuable. The mass was found remote from any settlement, in 

 an uncultivated and rather unfrequented region. Its weight was 

 one hundred and sixty-five pounds." 



This iron does not afford by etching, the Widmannstattian fig- 

 ures; although it exhibits glistening freckles, or angular spots of 

 the size of fine-grained gunpowder, which are occasionally in- 



termingled with shining lines and fibres. Sp. gr. =^7-265. 



It consists of iron 99-89, with traces of calcium, magnesium 

 and aluminium, in the order, as to quantity, in which they are 

 enumerated, — the calcium being most abundant. 



2. Scriba, ( Oswego, ) N. Y. — My description of this mass was 

 published in Vol. xl, p. 366, (1841.) To that account may now 

 be added the statement of Mr. John G. Pendei ^ 

 to me in a letter dated July 15, 1846. " I saw a mass of iron at 

 Oswego in 1834, in the possession of Mr. Rathbun, (a black- 

 smith,) which I judged to be meteoric. Mr. R. had obtained it 

 on that day from his collier, who had been down to deliver a load 

 of charcoal, and stated that he found it in the woods, some where 

 in the vicinity of his coal-pit. The circumstance of its bein c 

 found in the forest, together with its size and form, induced me 

 at the time to believe it to be meteoric iron. The mass in all 

 probability, was originally globular in form, but from having been 

 highly ignited, and striking the earth (perhaps on a stone) with 

 great force, a flattening in its shape was produced, like that which 

 would be occasioned in a round lump of putty, if thrown against 

 a board. I was fully satisfied that the form it possessed, could 

 nave been imparted in no other way." 



The foregoing contains but little beyond the testimony of a 

 second witness, to the conditions under which the man was found. 

 « appeared important however, to omit no circumstance relative 

 Jo its discovery, for the reason that it does not possess that pecu- 

 liar chemical composition, which has heretofore been regarded as 

 confirmatory of the extra-terrestrial origin of similar productions, 

 and on which account, I hesitated in my first notice to include 

 " ai ?ong undoubted meteoric irons. Its resemblance however, to 

 he "alker county, Ala., iron, not only in composition, but in the 

 generally smooth surface and black color of its crust, and still 

 J 10 "? in the freckled fisures developed upon its polished sections 

 °y nitric acid, establishes an analogy of the most marked kind 

 between the two bodies. And as it seems unreasonable to ascribe 

 ne lar ge drop-shaped mass of Alabama, either to a terrestrial or 

 an artificial source, I feel authorized in claiming a meteoric origin 

 f °f them both. 



