356 Br. Walter Flight— On Meteorites. 



papers, and again in his Early Man in Europe, p. 106. This notice 

 has always seemed to me to be most suspicious. It describes how a 

 young German engineer in the Russian service called Benkendorf, 

 being one day in a steam launch in the estuary of the Lena, came 

 across a Mammoth which had been detached from the frozen banks of 

 the river, and w^as careering about in tlie flood. The notice describes 

 how the animal was secured by a rope, how it was examined, and the 

 contents of its stomach observed, but that presently a sudden rush of 

 ■water carried it away. The w^hole story is told in a vigorous style, 

 and with a very suspicious resemblance to a romance concocted out 

 of what was already known about the Mammoth, and in fact adds 

 little of actual fact to our previous knowledge. I recently looked 

 up the notice in Middendorf, who quotes the account as trustworthy, 

 but I confess my suspicions were not allayed when I found whence 

 he had obtained it. He quotes the story from a boy's book entitled 

 " Kosmos fiir die Jugend. Blicke in die Schopfung der Welt und 

 in die Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit vom anfang bis zur Gegen- 

 wart," published at Nurnberg in 1862, and written by Philipp 

 Korber, the author of many other works. This book I have not 

 been able to consult, as, unfortunately, like many others, it is not in 

 the British Museum Library. The account professes to be taken 

 from the letter of the young Russian naval officer Benkendorf, who 

 was born in the Island of Oesel in the Baltic, February 23rd, 1821, 

 and joined a topographical expedition to Siberia, whence he wrote 

 several lettei's to Korber describing his adventures, the one we are 

 interested in being in the year 1846. It is very strange that if 

 genuine no accounts of this discovery should have reached the ears 

 of Baer or Brandt, Schmidt or Schrenck, who none of them mention 

 it, and that it should be first heard of in a popular book for boys 

 in 1862. It would be interesting if the story could be sifted by 

 some one who could get access to Mr. Korber, or even to his book, 

 and the information would be especially useful to students like 

 myself. 



IV. — Supplement to a Chapter in the History of Meteorites. 

 By Walter Flight, D.Sc, F.G.S. 

 {Continued from page 316.) 



Found 1879, July 19.— Lick Creek, Davison Co.^ 



In this paper is given an engraving, actual size, and a short ac- 

 count of a small metallic mass, weighing rather more than two 

 pounds, and found at the above date in Davison county. "When 

 found it was covered with a thick scaly crust of oxide. It weighs 

 1'24 kilogrammes or 23|- ounces avoirdupois. It is one of the rare 

 class that do not show the Widmanstattian figures. It contains 

 iron, nickel, cobalt, and phosphorus. A complete analysis of the 

 meteorite is being prepared. It is the property of Professor W. 

 E. Hidden, of the New York Academy of Sciences. Mr. Hidden 

 has in his cabinet three other undescribed meteorites from the 



' Illustrated Scientific News, New York, Marcli 15, 1880, iii. No. 6, pp. 62 and 66. 

 Amer. Journ. Sc. xx. 1880, 324. 



