448 Dr. Walter Flight— On Meteorites. 



With, traces of mano;anese and cliromium. The silicate soluble in 

 hydrochloric acid appeared to be analogous to olivine, and the 

 insoluble silicate to bronzite. 



1845, May (about dusk). — Barratta Plain, Deniliquin, Australia.^ 



It was stated in an issue of The Australasian of the date given 

 below that Mr. H. C. Russell, the Astronomer- Royal, while visit- 

 ing Deniliquin, succeeded in acquiring for the Sydney Museum the 

 greater part of a meteorite which fell " some years ago " at Barratta 

 Station, 35 miles "below Deniliquin." The stone originally weighed 

 SOOlbs., but it had been broken up and fragments bad been distri- 

 buted as curiosities. An announcement appeared in 1874 to the 

 effect that Mr. Liversidge, of the University of Sydney, had made a 

 preliminary examination of its composition. No details seem to have 

 yet appeared. 



From a paper since issued by Liversidge it appears that the pieces 

 of stone originally weighed about 2 cwt. The large mass weighs 

 145 lbs., and this must at first have amounted to from 150 to 157 lbs. 

 Of the two pieces found near the large mass, one weighing about 

 4 lbs. has been lost, the other weighed 60 to 70 lbs., and was taken 

 to the Editor of the Pastoral Times newspaper at Deniliquin, and it 

 also has been lost. 



Barratta Station is situated on a vast plain, on which no signs of 

 rocks can be seen ; the largest stone to be found weighed 2 oz. A 

 stockman named Jones remembers the fall, which took place about 

 dusk one evening, when a large body like a bush on fire making a 

 loud hissing or roaring noise came from the S.E. and passed over- 

 head. Some fencers who were camped four miles N.W. of the 

 Barratta homestead saw " a thunder and lightning stone " fall on the 

 ground near their camp. It frightened them because they saw it 

 coming directly towards them, but it fell about a quarter of a mile 

 distant. It was found half-buried in the ground, which it had 

 ploughed up for a considerable distance. It was cracked in several 

 places. It is believed to have been, when found, 30 inches in 

 diameter and about 12 inches thick. This would make it one of the 

 largest stones the fall of which has been put on record. 



A preliminary chemical examination of the stone by Liversidge 

 shows it to consist of 92 per cent, of silicates of magnesium, iron, 

 and aluminium, and about 8 per cent, of magnetic minerals. The 

 proportion of nickel-iron is small in the extreme, amounting to from 

 063 to 0-086 per cent., and cobalt is stated to be entirely absent. 

 On the outside it has a blackish fused crust and the outer layers 

 appear to possess a strongly laminated structure to the depth of from 

 three-quarters of an inch to one inch. Below this the stone is much 

 more compact, and granular, inclosing numerous spheroidal bodies. 

 Under the microscope small gi'ains of green mineral resembling 

 olivine are to be seen, also particles of a yellow mineral which passes 



1 The Atistralasian, April 22nd, l%1l.— Nature, iv. (1871), 212,— See also The 

 Journal of Science, Januaiy, 1874, 123. — The Deniliquin or Barratta Meteorite. £y 

 ArcMbald Liversidge. 1873. Sydney: T. Kichards, Government Printer. 



