27 



Paris, it is used for plastering walls for a hard finish. 

 Within a few years, gypsum burnt with alum, called 

 alumed plaster, has been used in the arts. It is harder 

 and more beautiful than common plaster, and like some 

 alabasters, has considerable transparency. 



It is thus prepared : After the plaster is burnt, it is 

 immediately saturated with alum water; after having been 

 wet for about six hours, the water is poured off, the plas- 

 ter dried in the sun and again burnt. It is then used like 

 common plaster, but moistened with a solution of alum 

 instead of water. Mixed with half sand, it acquires great 

 hardness. 



According to the last census there were three hundred 

 and twenty-one mills in the United States for grinding 

 gypsum, and the value of the product amounts to 

 82,500,000. Most of this is used in the States east of the 

 Mississippi river and north of the cotton States for improv- 

 ing the soil and crops. 



There is no doubt but that Texas has vast wealth in her 

 gypsum now lying dormant for warn of cheap transporta- 

 tion. When railroads extend to the gypsum region, this 

 wealth will begin to be realized. At present Texas im- 

 ports most of the gypsum used in the arts and for finishing 

 the walls of buildings. 



For farther notice of iron ores, see manufactures. 



METEORIC IRON. 



In the State collection is a specimen of this weighing 

 three hundred and fifteen pounds. It is said to have been 

 found on the head waters of the Red River, northward of 

 Young county. It was an object of worship or veneration 

 to the Indians, who revered it as foreign to the earth and 

 coming from the Great Spirit. In 1858 or '59 Maj. 

 Neighbors, then in command at* Fort Belknap, sent a 

 wagon after the meteorite and had it brought into the fort. 

 It was thence sent in a government wagon to San Antonio 

 and onward to Austin. 



Various, have been the conjectures as to the origin of 

 metorites, some asserting that they came from volcanoes in 

 the moon, having been thrown beyond her centre of 

 gravity, but few if any now btelieve this. Others think 

 they are fragments of a broken planet, and others think 

 that they belong to a large class of meteors flying through 



