: 
: 
J. W. Mallet on Meteoric Iron from Virginia. 337 
Art. XLVIII.—On a fourth mass of Meteorie Iron from Augusta 
County, Virginia; by J. W. MALLET. 
In 1871 I described * three masses of meteoric iron found 
a few miles from Staunton in this State; still another has 
lately been brought to light under the following circumstances. 
About the year 1858 or 1859 a negro man, named Alf, belong- 
it, but no one considered it curious or valuable enough to pay 
the price asked, a dollar. This man is dead, and it cannot now 
be ascertained where he found the specimen, but probably on 
r. Van Lear’s land, and undoubtedly in his immediate neigh- 
borhood. Failing to sell the mass, Alf threw it away in a 
vacant plot of ground behind a blacksmith’s shop. Here it 
lay for several years, until it was used, with some other loose 
material, to build a stone fence. On account of its irregular 
shape and great weight it soon fell out of the fence, and was 
then thrown aside in the rear of a dentist’s house. He used it 
for some time as an anvil on which to hammer metals and 
orite before it was sent to Rochester, and have furnished me 
weight was 152 pounds, or 68.950 grams. The crust was not 
as thick as that upon the masses from the same locality previ- 
ously examined, and at a number of points the metallic luster 
* This Journal, III, ii, 10. : : 
*The above account of the history of the meteorite was furnished by Mr. 
Miller. 
