14 J. W. Mallet on Meteoric Iron from Virginia. — 
No, 1 No. 2, No. 3. 
ees ees 172 185 122 
Sits, 5 067 061 “056 
99872 99°659 99°947 
These numbers are so closely accordant that there can be no 
doubt of the masses being essentially identical in chemical 
composition. 
The nickel and iron were separated, in a cold and quite 
dilute solution, by means of carbonate of baryta, and the pre- 
cipitates obtained were carefully tested as to purity before the 
weights were finally accepted as correct. 
Considerable quantities of material were used for the deter- 
mination of the minor constituents. Particular attention was 
given to the identification of the minute quantity of tin present, 
as Professor J. Lawrence Smith has lately mentioned* the fact, 
that he has never found this metal in the course of numerous 
analyses of meteoric iron, The precipitate with sulphuretted 
hydrogen, which contained the tin and copper, was in each case 
obtained from a solution of more than a hundred grams of the 
ron. 
I feel satisfied that the chlorine is not of meteoric origin—not 
an essential constituent of the original masses—but has been 
derived from the soil in which the iron has lain imbedded. 
The exudation of watery drops containing metallic chlorides 
is observable only at points on the outside and on cut surfaces 
along the lines of fissures communicating with the outside. 
Although chlorine is mentioned above as found in the general 
analysis of the planing machine shavings, I failed altogether to 
detect it in a specially selected solid piece of some fifty grams 
taken from a part of No. 1 destitute of fissures or flaws. 
The siliceous residue is set down as silicic acid, but some of 
it seems to have in reality existed as silicide of iron. A part 
of this residue having been examined with the blowpipe to 
identify it as silicic acid, another portion was looked at with a 
magnifying power of 250 to 500 diameters, and in polarized 
ight was seen to consist of an amorphous powder, and rounded, 
transparent grains of very small dimensions, for the most part 
from ‘0025 to 0100 millimeter in diameter, of well-marked 
masses of meteoric iron a iris portions of a single fall from 
the heavens, agreeing so ¢ 
n 
chemical constitution ; having, moreover, all been found at but 
short distances from each other. The precise localities from 
which they came are as follows: 
* This Journal, I, xlix, 333, (May, 1870). 
