214 J. L. Smith— Rockingham County Meteoric Iron. 



tion to it from those possessing specimens, I have concluded to 

 publish the notes made at the time it came into my possession. 

 This iron was discovered in Rockingham County, North 

 Carolina, on a spot known as Smith's Mountain, two miles 

 north of the town of Madison, about lat. 86° 20', long. 79° 45'. 

 It was found by Mr. Peters, from whom Prof. Kerr obtained it 

 about the year 18H8. and was lying on the surface of an old 

 field which had been out of cultivation less than twenty years, 

 and for that reason it is supposed it may have fallen within 

 that time. It weighed originally about eleven pounds and was 

 covered with a coating of rust. Its structure is highly crys- 

 talline, and when polished and either heated or acted on by 

 1 furnishes remarkably fine Widmanstatian figures, 

 with delicate markings on the inside of the figures, which I 

 designated sometime ago as Laphamite markings, having first 

 observed them on the Wisconsin iron. 



This iron contains narrow seams of schreibersite that pene- 

 trate the mass for several centimeters in different di 

 some of them being two or three millimeters in thickness. In 

 one part of the iron I discovered some solid chloride of that 

 metal, enough to test its nature, and I detached a small 

 that is now in the Museum of the Garden of Plants at Paris. 

 It attracted moisture after being taken from a crevice in the 

 iron, and became quite soft. This is the second time I have 

 observed this solid chloride in meteoric iron. The nickelifer- 

 ous iron, constituting the mass, exhibits the eharaeteristwa 

 common to iron meteorites, viz: more or less diversity in the 

 character of the iron in different parts, these varieties being so 

 intimately associated that we possess no means of separating 

 them. Dr. Genth considers it as composed of three different 

 kinds of iron. 



I selected a fragment perfectly free from any schreibersite 

 visible to the eye ; it gave a specific gravity of 778, and on 

 analysis was found to contain — 



Iron . 90-88 



Nickel 8-02 



Cobalt -50 



Copper -03 



Phosphorus -03 



This will be seen to correspond to the analysis of Dr. Genth 

 before referred to, which was as follows : 



Iron 90-41 



Nickel (cobalt) . . 8-74 



Copper o-ll 



l™ 1 ^ -;----, °" 27 ) Pliosnhide insoluble 



Nickel cobalt. __ 0-33 K TT ^,, a o\A. 

 Phosphorus .... 0-U ) ln ohlorfiydne acid. 



