J. L. Smith—Dickson County Meteorite. 349 
may be said to be due to growth modified and directed by the 
Darwinian law of natural selection, both of these being directly 
subject to the influence of environment, or the sum of all the 
physical influences brought to bear upon the organization. 
his conclusion, it will be noticed, is strictly in accordance 
with the general tendency of zoological opinions at the present 
time and almost identical with the results taught by Herbert 
Spencer in his works on biology, although I was not aware of 
this until after they were written. Many of the facts support- 
Ing the position assumed have already been published in 
various scattered papers, but those will be united and accom- 
panied by others since discovered in the partially completed 
memoir of which this is the abstract. 
Art. XLVL—A Note in relation to the mass of Meteoric Iron 
that fell in Dickson County, Tenn., in 1885; by J. LAWRENCE 
SmitH, Louisville, Ky. 
August, 1835, near Charlotte, Dickson County, Tenn., U. S. ; 
lat. 36° 15’, long, 87° 29, s description was given by 
Professor Troost of Nashville, and published in this Journal in 
1845. Prof. Troost dying very shortly after that period, his 
for making the present communication is to call attention to 
the remarkable batanes of this most interesting meteorite, 
