1851.] The Shalka Meteorite. S09 



very loose,* and can easily be detached. It is sometimes, too, of the 

 thickness of thick foolscap or thin drawing paper, which I do not re- 

 coUect to have seen before noted. It is of a dusky iron black with 

 marks of fusion in many places, and of the black granules being fused 

 into it. It also gives the usual metallic streak. When the internal 

 part of a detached piece of the crust is examined by the magnifier it is 

 seen to be rough and granulated, with some bright metallic-looking 

 specks, but these not distinctly crystallized. 



Texture and Coherency. 



The state of aggregation of the different parts of the stone is curious, 

 and, from the fragments we have, we may say, generally, that externally 

 for two inches or more, and sometimes as much as three inches, it was 

 in general tolerably compact, so as to bear such polishing as its pumice- 

 like structure will take ; but that internally it runs to a coarse agglo- 

 meration of small irregular fragments, such as one sometimes sees in 

 coarse gravelly clays when dried. This part is so little coherent that 

 fragments of the stone must be lifted and handled with the greatest 

 precaution not to lose some grains of it, and some will even fall off 

 when carrying a specimen gently from place to place. 



We may thus assume that the stone, as a mass in the atmosphere, 

 was fused at its surface to a crust, with a coherent sandstone, or solid 

 pumice-like shell, and internally was a mass of agglomerated grains 

 only !f and this accounts for the stone's shivering itself to fragments 

 by its fall. The loosely coherent state of the more central parts 

 would seem to lend some corroboration of the hypothesis that these 

 bodies are formed in the atmosphere and not ejected from, or the 

 debris of other planets. 



Taste and Smell. 



It adheres strongly to the tongue, like pumice, in the grey ashy parts, 

 but less so at the darker ones. Its smell when breathed upon is 

 earthy and slightly bitter. 



It is harsh to handle, and excessively friable and grating when one 

 piece touches another. 



* Perhaps from sudden cooling ? 



f If it were possible to get a section of these, or to grind down a surface of 

 them, they would, I doubt not give a sort of Widmannstattenian lines like those 

 shewn on meteoric iron ; to judge at least by the fracture. 



2 s 2 



