106 Biography of Berzelius. 
entirely of such minerals as are found upon the earth, and that 
they certainly do not contain any elementary constituent which 
is not met with in terrestrial bodies. It was only in the meteoric 
stone of Alais that he found carbon in an unknown state of combi- 
nation: this stone, when placed in water, disintegrated and fell to 
powder, which had a mixed smell of clay and hay. ‘This shewed 
that if, as Berzelius considered, meteoric stones originated from 
other cosmical bodies, in their native state they could be conver- 
ted into clayey mixtures, like the rocks on our own 
then raised the question as to whether this carbonaceous earth 
blackish-grey sublimate were obtained, but no empyreumatic oil 
and no hydrocarbon; the carbonaceous matter was, therefore, not 
of the same nature as the humus on the earth’s surface. The 
sublimate heated in oxygen, gave no carbonic acid or water, and 
changed into a white insoluble substance, whose nature could not 
be determined on account of the minute quantity. But to have 
pronounced it to be an elementary body, not originally belonging 
to our earth, would have been unwarranted. 
This was the last extensive research made by Berzelius. His 
health, which, never strong, had already often necessitated the 
