362 On Chlorine in Meteoric Iron. 



in the soil on land, at no great distance from my house. Its sur- 

 face exhibited in several places the blebby efflorescences which I 

 expected to find, and these on being removed and boiled in water 

 afforded undoubted evidence of chlorine. 



It will be easy to prosecute this inquiry into a greater number 

 of details, and I shall follow it up still farther, as opportunities 

 may offer ; but I think the foregoing cases are calculated to place 

 the meteoric origin of chlorine, in at least a doubtful point of view. 



The sources of chlorine to the mass of kentledge which was 

 buried in the harbor were undoubtedly the chlorides of sea-wa- 

 ter ; while in the other instances, the chlorine may be attributed 

 to that universally diffused haloid salt, the chloride of calcium 

 (muriate of lime). The decomposition in both cases, may be the 

 result of electrolytic action, in which carbon and iron are the de- 

 composing elements, the latter being the positive electrode, upon 

 which the chlorine is evolved, and with which it combines as 

 fast as the electrolysis proceeds. 



It is easy to see that the composition of meteoric irons, and the 

 situations in which they are frequently placed, in and upon the 

 soils of our earth, might enable them to obtain chlorine in a man- 

 ner similar to that supposed in the two last mentioned cases. 



Additional Remarks on the New Haven mass of Kentledge 

 Iron. — A coarse crystalline texture was developed throughout the 

 prism, if we except about one and three fourths of an inch upon 

 one side, in which a sub-porous, fine granular structure exists ; but 

 near its line of junction with the coarser texture, an insensible 

 gradation between the two structures is visible. The crystalline 

 portion is analogous to that of the coarsely meteoric irons of 

 North Carolina and Tennessee. When first broken, its structure 

 reminds one most forcibly of metallic antimony ; but after a few 

 months exposure to the air, the tendency to oblique tetrahedral 

 cleavage becomes more striking. When a large fragment of it 

 is broken so as to present a fracture across the laminge, the fol- 

 lowing structure becomes visible : two sets of laminee appear, 

 which alternate with each other in a regular order ; the thickest 

 of these are about one tenth of a line, the thinnest one twentieth 

 of a line. The latter are foliated perpendicularly to the breadth 

 of the laminae ; the former in coincidence with their breadth. We 

 moreover observe in any considerable fragment, that layers of 

 both kinds frequently intersect the main series at angles of 60° 



