160 An Account of a Meteor, 



t 

 spots, almost wholly undecomposed, and that the globu- 

 lar bodies have been formed by a complete fusion of cer- 

 tain portions, by intense ignition. 



Yale College J January 14, 1808. 



POSTSCRIPT-— February 22, 1808. 



IN Nicholson's Journal for October, 1806, (No. 61, 

 p. 147,) is an abstract of a memoir by M. Laugier, tak- 

 en from the 58tli volume of the Annals of Chemistry, in 

 which the author asserts the existence of a new principle 

 in meteoric stones, viz. chrome. Before adverting to 

 this subject, it will be well to point out another assertion 

 in M. Laugier's memoir, which appears to have been 

 incorrectly expressed. —-After remarking, that all che- 

 mists who have examined meteoric stones, " have ob- 

 tained simiku" results," he enumerates the principles 

 which have been discovered in them, and says they are 

 silex, iron, manganese^ sulphur, nickel, with a few acci- 

 dental traces of lime and alumine. It seems plain, that 

 manganese has here been carelessly written instead of 

 magnesia ; for, neither Mr. Howard, nor any of the able 

 chemists who succeeded him in the examination of me- 

 teoric stones, before M. Laugier, ever found manganese, 

 but constantly magnesia ; and as magnesia is not men- 

 tioned at all by this latter chemist, I think it is plain that 

 magnesia is intended by him, when he writes manganese. 

 Dismissing this for an inadvertency, we will therefore 

 retorii to chrome, 



I have carefully repeated, and somewhat varied and 

 extended the experiments of Laugier, on the discovery 

 of chrome in meteoric stones. 



1. A strong solution of caustic potash was boiled for 

 an hour on a portion of the stone in powder- --the fluid 

 was filtered- --it had a slightly yellowish colour. 



2. Nitric acid ^vas added, somewhat in excess, in or- 

 der that the potash might all be saturated. 



3. Nitrat of mercury, recently formed, without heat, 

 was added, but there was no precipitate whatever ;---at 

 this stage of the process, Laugier "threw down a -red 

 orange coloured precipitate, or chromate of mercury." 



