OBSERVATIONS OF LUMINOUS METEORS. 293 



blacksmith, who managed to remove a piece weighing 3 jibs., which was 

 wrouffht into horse-shoe nails and a point for a plough. It remained where 

 it was found till last year, when it was sent to Menlo Park. It weighs 

 32i lbs., and its form, as well as the character of an etched surface, are 

 shown in woodcuts accompanying the paper. An analysis shows it to 

 contain iron and nickel, with a little copper, phosphorus, and carbon. It 

 is being made in duplicate, and will be published later on. The Wid- 

 manstattian figures are well developed. 



1875. — BiUler, Bates Go., Missouri.'^ 



This iron has already been described by Broadhead- and Smith,^ the 

 latter finding it remarkable for the very large and regular Widmanstattian 

 figures which it displays. A specimen, weighing 1 kilogramme, 334 

 grammes, acquired by the Vienna Collection from Dr. L. Smith, was found, 

 to have three etched surfaces nearly perpendicular to each other. It was 

 noticed that the greater part of the iron had an even dull appearance, but 

 in this lustreless iron-grey part lay numerous — in part individual, in part 

 irregularly cohering lamellae, of which four differently directed systems 

 appear on the sections. The lamellae together form an octahedral skeleton, 

 just as in Tschermak's schematic figure 5 * the crystal-structure of iron 

 is shown to exhibit a hexahedral skeleton. 



The ground-mass, though lustreless and structureless, shows a peculiar 

 play of light, to which later reference will be made ; its hardness is 

 remarkably low — a little below 4 — being distinctly scratched by fluorite. 

 The nuclei of the lamelliB are purely granular, and in several respects show 

 the greatest resemblance to the ground-mass (in hardness, &c.) ; only a 

 few exhibit feebly in their broader parts a granular structure like what the 

 beam-iron of other irons presents. The lamelte are covered with band- 

 ii'on (tanite) which is recognised by its high lustre and pale isabel-yellow 

 colour ; they are very smal], the nucleus and its two covers being in few 

 cases more than l-60th of a millimetre broad, and the length usually 15 to 

 20 mm. (some are 30 mm.) When lamellfe diSerently directed come 

 together, one system is usually developed quite complete, as if produced, 

 before the other; sometimes, though rarely, nucleus springs from nucleus 

 and cover from cover, in proof of the simultaneous origin of the two 

 systems. 



"Prom the main structure of the four systems, not only parallel, but 

 also, in sparing quantities, irregularly orientated small plates intersect 

 the ground-mass. To microscopically minute substructures of them is 

 due the peculiar play of light of that part of the iron. Troilite occurs in 

 rounded or lenticular masses, some 2 centimetres in diameter, but none 

 is found in the lamellated systems. 



The largest of the sections does not vary very much (about 13°) from 

 the position of a leucitohedral face ; three distinctly marked lamellar 

 systems cross it at angles of 70°, 61°, and 49°. For the face (533) the 

 corresponding values are 



_ G5-4°, 0°, 65-4°, 49-2° (0° + 65-4°) = 65-4°. 

 The drawings of these sections are to be published later on. 



' A. Brezina, Sitzher. Altacl. Whs. 1880. Ixxxii. Oct.-Heft. 



'^ Broadbead, Amer. Journ. So. [3] x. 401. 



3 Smith, Amer. Journ. Sc. [3] xiii. 211. 



* Tschermak, SiP^ler. Aliad. Wiss. Ixx. 187i, 443. 



