JAN. — MAR. 185T.] Supposed Aerolite {71 a tree. 
" Concerning the highly interesting mineral mass, lately found 
enclosed in a trunk of a tree, and of which you have done me the 
honour to ask my opinion, I beg leave to observe, that I have no 
hesitation in pronouncing it to be a true meteoric stone. 
" Aside from the difficulty of otherwise accounting for it, under 
the circumstances in which it is found, the mass presents those 
peculiar traits that are regarded as characteristic of meteorites. It 
has, for example, a fused, vitrified black coating, which is quite 
continuous over a considerable part of the mass, and contains se- 
veral grains and imbedded nodular and vein-like portions of metallic 
iron, in which I understand nickel and cobalt have been detected. 
" The general character of the body of the stone is indeed pecu- 
liar; and as a whole, unlike any one I have yet seen; it being 
principally made up of a dull greyish yellow, peridotic mineral, 
which I have nowhere met with among these productions, except 
in the Hommoney Creek meteoric iron mass, and which exists in 
it only in a very limited quantity. It is singular to remark also, * 
that the stone under notice strikingly resembles in size, shape and 
surface, the iron above alluded to. 
" The absence of the black, slaggy coating on one of the broad 
surfaces of the stone, may arise from its having been broken away, 
by the violence to which it must have been subjected in entering 
the tree ; for it appears to have buried itself completely at its con- 
tact, an operation which would probably have been impossible, in 
the case of a stone, but for its wedge-shape configuration, and the 
coincidence of one of its edges with the vertical fibres of the wood. 
possesses a collection from 103 localities, but also essays oa the same subject by his 
countrymen Dr. Troost, Professor Silliman, jun., and Dr. Clark. 
In our own country, Mr. Brayley published some years ago a comprehensive 
view of this subject in the Philosophical Magazine, and recently Mr. Greg has in 
the same publication put together all the previous and additional materials, with 
tables showing the geographical distribution of meteorites. Among the well-re- 
corded examples of the fall of metalliferous meteorites, no one is more remarka- 
ble than that which happened in the year 1851, about sixteen leagues S. E. of 
Barcelona in Spain. In describing that phenomenon, Dr. Joaquim Balcells, Pro- 
fessor of Natural Sciences at Barcelona, has illustrated the subject with much eru- 
dition, whilst his theoretical views are ingenious in his endeavour to explain how 
meteorites are derived from the moon. 
