118 C. U. Shepard—Meteoric Iron of South Carolina. 
be a valuable ore, and that it indicated a mine upon his prop- 
erty. On learning its true character he relinquished the idea 
approaching most nearly to the shape of a very transverse 
fresh-water bivalve. Unlike many of the iron masses foun 
in the soil, the surface of the present iron is nearly free from 
yellow hydrated peroxide of iron, being mostly enveloped with 
a black and brittle coating, which, though containing some 
ing force. This circumstance seems worthy of notice here, as 
one of the causes of the disintegration and detonation of 
meteorites while traversing our atmosphere. 
_ The most interesting feature by far, of the Lexington 1ron, 
is that of its remarkable analogy in structure and composition 
with the Bohumilitz iron, found in 1829, and now preserved 1n 
the Bohemian National Museum of Prague, of which a descrip 
tion is given by Dr. Otto Buchner in his catalogue of meteorl¢ 
collections, page 158,* and still further in the memoir oD 
meteorites, of Prof. Gustave Rose, in the transactions of the 
Royal Academy of Berlin, 1863.+ ; 
The resemblance of the etched surfaces of these irons 18 5° 
strong that they might very easily be confounded together. 
ey are the only two irons which strikingly give the move 
* Die Meteoriten in Sammlungen, ihre Geschichte, mineralogische und chem- 
ische Beschaffenheit, von Dr. Otto Buchner. Leipsic, 1863. : 
Beschreibung und Kintheilung der Meteoriten auf grund der Sammlung 
mineralogischen Museum zu Berlin, von Gustave Rose, aus den Abhandlungen der 
Kénigl. Akadamie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1863, mit vier Kupfertafeln. 
Berlin, 1864. 
