Native and Meteoric Iron. 367 



ciently large to enable him to gratify the very rational curiosity 

 he possessed of working under the hammer, an iron which he 

 was satisfied differed very considerably from the metallic iron of 

 the arts. 



The mass was found in the town of Scriba, four miles east of 

 Oswego, about five years ago, by a man by the name of Julius 

 Rust, who was in the habit of furnishing Mr. Rathbun with 

 charcoal. It was discovered in digging up the soil, which had 

 been the foundation of an old coal-pit. Its weight is about 

 eight pounds ; and its general aspect, of which some idea may 

 be formed by the annexed figure, is wholly opposed to the sup- 

 position of its being a product of the forge. Indeed no iron 

 works of any description have ever existed in this region. It 

 approaches the cube in shape, though all its angles and edges are 

 more or less rounded, while its upper surface is sub-spherical, and 

 nearly smooth. The sides and base, on the contrary, are much 

 pitted by irregular concavities, which give a surface most resem- 

 bling on the whole, the ripple produced on a calm sea by the 

 first access of a gentle breeze. The arrangement of these de- 

 pressions and elevations upon the sides of the mass, is such, as 

 to give obscure lines or waves parallel to the edges of the base. 

 This appearance taken along with the more flattened shape of 

 the base, led Mr. Rathbun to imagine that the mass had fallen 

 from the heavens, in a plastic condition, and that its present fig- 

 ure is partly accounted for, by its striking the earth on that side, 

 which is here described as the base. 



With the exception of a few impressions made in two or three 

 places by the cold chisel, for the purpose of detaching little frag- 

 ments by Mr. R. there is no trace pertaining to it, of any human 

 workmanship. But its most singular feature consists in its hav- 

 ing several re-entering angles, (see 1 and 2,) about its edges, 

 which are closely packed with a hard, black and brittle ore, whose 

 color and lustre approach to those of Borrowdale plumbago. No 

 part of the specimen exhibited any accumulation of rust. Its 

 color, where a fresh surface had not been exposed, was iron-black. 

 The fresh surface is light steel-grey. The texture is exceedingly 

 fine, and when polished, the lustre is high. 



On my return to New Haven, I employed a skilful machinist, 

 who had been accustomed to the slitting of meteoric iron, to 

 make a number of sections from one side of the mass. In per- 



