16 Annals of the South African Museum. 



broken up into several divisions, each of which gives a uniform but 

 independently orientated shimmer. The sheen is caused by fine 

 etching-lines which pass continuously across each division, unin- 

 terrupted by the intervening lines of glittering scales described 

 above. 



Such a field may therefore be regarded as built up of a few larger 

 separate pieces of kamacite. Other fields are composed of bundles 

 of small, apparently granular bands, which seem to be arranged 

 parallel to the octahedral faces. The minute structure reminds one 

 of that of the meteorite as a whole, with the difference, however, 

 that the small beams are not surrounded by taenite, which, so far as 

 can be seen, occurs only in isolated scales. Fine-grained piessite, 

 enclosing strongly lustrous scales of quite microscopic size, forms the 

 majority of the small fields, some of which, however, have in addition 

 a narrow border of delicate combs. 



Apart from differences in detail the general structure, as is well 

 shown in Pig. 2, Plate V., reminds one greatly of the Toluca iron. 



The eight slices which I examined are distinguished by great 

 poverty in accessory constituents. Troilite is limited to isolated 

 grains of 1'5 mm. maximum diameter. On these, however, in spite 

 of their minute size, delicate intergrowths with schreibersite and a 

 black mineral can sometimes be recognised even with a hand lens. 

 From the mere appearance one cannot determine whether the black 

 mineral is daubr^elite or graphite, and the particles are too small to 

 allow a hardness determination ; but the absence of chromium and 

 the comparatively high carbon percentage shown in the analysis, 

 point to its being graphite. Schreibersite occurs in addition only in 

 very small particles which are especially found squeezed in between 

 the beams. Under the microscope small glittering rods, probably of 

 rhabdite, are occasionally seen in the piessite. 



No trace of an alteration zone can be seen ; however, as is stated 

 above, a considerable amount of rusting has most probably occurred. 

 Fine veins filled with the so-called "Eisenglas" sometimes pass 

 inward from the exterior, and small rust spots readily form in the 

 vicinity of these, though elsewhere the nickel-iron shows no 

 tendency to rust. 



The analysis made by Dr. J. Fahrenhorst gave the results shown 

 in columns Il.-II.e. On solution in aqua regia a minute residue 

 was obtained (graphite ?). 11./ gives the total composition, II. g 

 the composition of the nickel-iron after deducting the iron-nickel- 

 phosphide (FejNiP), the iron-sulphide (FeS), and the ferrous 

 chloride (FeCl,). 



