1848.] Meteoric Iron from the Kurruckpore hills. 539 



He added in conversation that the gentleman who first obtained it 

 was an Indigo planter, bnt omitting to note his name, I have not been 

 able to make further enquiry as to any traditions about it. Captain 

 Sherwill also mentioned that there are native forges in the vicinity, but 

 he has sent us some of their ores, which are common brown iron ore, 

 and of their smelted masses, which are quite different from the speci- 

 men, and this would not have been worshipped without some very special 

 reason for it. Our mass is also, to say nothing of its physical and 

 chemical properties, of a size and weight far beyond what any native 

 forge could produce, at a cast, and moreover, is most certainly not cast 

 iron. Nevertheless before submitting it to the scientific world as 

 meteoric iron, we are bound to omit no proof direct or collateral, that it 

 is really and truly such, and this will be, I trust, my excuse, if thought 

 prolix. 



I proceed now to describe our specimen, noting in parallel columns 

 coincidences from Mr. Mornay's description of the great Brazilian mass, 

 (Mornay and Wollaston, in Phil. Trans. Vol. C VI. for 1816,) Pallas' 

 description of the mass of Siberian iron, which is now known to be 

 meteoric, from the French edition of his voyages, (Vol. VI. p. 346, and 

 following,) and from several descriptions and notes on meteoric iron 

 from various sources in the Quarterly Journal of Science, which I shall 

 note as I proceed. 



I. — External appearance. 



Our specimen is a block of a The mass of upwards of 3000ibs. 

 somewhat conical, oviform disk- in weight from the banks of the 

 shape, standing, as it were, on a Red River, Louisiana, and now in 

 sort of foot, as in the plates,* but the New York Institution, is de- 

 it must be supported by a block of scribed as " shape irregular, inclin- 

 wood not to fall forward. It is ing to oviform, much broader at 

 slightly truncated at both ends, bottom, where it has rested on the 

 Its colour is, in some parts, mostly earth, than at the top, inclining 

 at the more prominent knots and somewhat in the manner of a cone," 

 bosses, a chesnut brown, in others Quarterly Journal, Vol. IX. p, 193. 

 and in the numerous cellular cavi- Mr. Mornay's description and 

 ties with which it is in many places drawing of the Brazilian mass gives 

 honey-combed, it is more of a dark also a sort of foot on which it stands 

 iron-slag colour. Generally it re- as well as a tail behind. He says 

 sembles in colour a mass of some also that the foot is about six 

 of the more compact brown iron inches in height ; colour of the 



* Plate XXIX. is a perspective view of it, Plate XXX. are vertical and hori- 

 zontal sections to scale. 



4 B 



