Meteoric Iron. 257 
Art. [X.—Meteoric Iron. 
1. In Texas. 
In Vol. viii. p. 218 of this Journal, is an account of the great 
mass of meteoric iron from the Red River, now in the cabinet of 
Yale College. Among almost forgotten files we find a letter, dated 
Sparta, ‘Tennessee, Sept. 15, and another, dated Oct. 17, 1829, 
from Robert Cox, to the editor, containing the following statements. 
A gentleman returned from a five years’ absence in the prov- 
ince of Texas, during which time he had been frequently with the 
Camanche Indians, and a small party of them conducted him to a 
mass of metal lying on the bank of a creek. Its length was four 
feet, and it was about one foot square [at the end.] It required six 
of the Indians to raise it on end. A piece weighing two ounces 
was cut off by a tomahawk. It possessed great hardness and tena- 
city, and when hammered (in the cold) shewed great malleability, 
being easily beaten out very thin without cracking or scaling. The 
color was stated to be between that of gold and silver. Its lustre 
was remarkable, and could not be tarnished by any thing that was 
done to it, even by the application of heat. The large mass of 
metal seemed to defy every attempt to make an impression on it, 
except under the hammer, when it became pliable and soft. From 
the acquaintance which we have with the large mass alluded to 
above, we cannot doubt that the piece described in Mr. Cox’s let- 
ters is nickeliferous meteoric iron. ‘Those that saw the piece were 
disposed to make it out to be gold, and probably saw a yellow tint 
quite as strongly as it existed, if indeed it existed at all, for the mal- 
leable iron which we have from the same region is like that of Sibe- 
ria, of a remarkable pure grayish white, with a high degree of lustre. 
We have recently seen a gentleman, who stated that he knew of 
several large pieces of malleable iron in Texas, and we hope to ob- 
tain some more precise information concerning them. 
2. Meteoric Iron in France. 
The late Col. George Gibbs brought to this country some pieces 
of meteoric iron which he detached from a large mass lying on the 
mountains of Auvergne in France, and a notice of it was published 
in Dr. Bruce’s Journal of Mineralogy, in connexion with one of the 
Louisiana iron. 
