AEROLITES. 
413 
the British Museum may also be seen a small fragment of an 
aerolite, originally weighing 191 lb., which from time im- 
memorial had been lying at Elbogen, near Carlsbad, in 
Bohemia, and had always borne the legendary appellation of 
“ Der verwiinschte Burggraf” or the enchanted Burgrave. 
The remainder of this mass is preserved in the Imperial col- 
lection at Vienna. In Great Britain only two meteoric masses 
(not seen to fall) have hitherto been discovered ; one was 
found about forty years ago near Leadhills, in Scotland ; the 
other in 1861, at Newstead, in Boxburghshire. 
Several instances have at different times occurred in which 
stones like aerolites have been found, and prized accordingly, 
until their real nature was demonstrated by the aid of chemical 
analysis. One valuable specimen, found a few years ago, was 
shown to have derived its origin amongst the sconce of an 
iron foundry ; another, picked up in the Isle of Wight, 
turned out to be a nodule of iron pyrites, similar in every 
respect to those which abound in the neighbouring chalk 
cliffs ; and lastly, some aerolites of a peculiarly glassy appear- 
ance were found shortly after, of which it may, perhaps, suffice 
to say that the scene of this discovery was — Birmingham. 
When we come to examine the composition of meteoric 
stones, we find in various specimens a great diversity in 
their chemical structure. Iron is the metal most invariably 
present, usually accompanied by a considerable per-centage of 
nickel and cobalt ; also five other metals, chromium, copper, 
molybdenum, manganese, and tin; but of all these iron is 
that which largely preponderates, forming sometimes as much 
as 96 parts in the 100. Bare instances have, however, been 
recorded where the proportion of iron has sunk so low as to 
form only 2 per cent., and the deficiency thus caused has been 
made up by a larger admixture of some earthy mineral, such 
as augite, hornblende, or olivine. Other ingredients, like 
carbon, sulphur, alumina, &c., are also found to enter, in 
different proportions, into the composition of aerolites ; the 
total number of chemical elements observed in them, up to 
this present date, being nineteen or twenty. It has been well 
remarked by an able writer, that no new substance has 
hitherto come to us from without ; and thus we find that all 
these nineteen or twenty elements are precisely similar to 
those which are distributed throughout the rocks and minerals 
of our earth ; the essential difference between the two 
classes of compounds — celestial and terrestrial — being seen 
most clearly in the respective methods in which the compo- 
nent parts are admixed. 
In the outward appearance of aerolites there is one charac- 
teristic so constant that, out of the many hundred examples 
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