272 Mr. Morn ay's account of the discovery 
General commanded him, in consequence, to have it con- 
veyed to Bahia. This man returned to the spot, and after 
having excavated round the block, so as to be able to get the 
ends of four powerful levers under it, he contrived by great 
exertion, with the assistance of thirty men, to turn it on its 
side. He observed the bed on which it rested, to be of the 
same scaly substance that was attached to the bottom of the 
mass, and about eighteen inches thick. 
About the latter end of 1785, he conveyed to the spot a 
waggon, or rather a truck built for the purpose, and suc- 
ceeded in getting the mass of iron into it, but having spent 
three days in this operation, the men employed were obliged 
to depart, in consequence of the neighbouring rivulet being 
brackish, and not fit to be drank. They returned, however, 
and yoked oxen to the truck, but they could not move it 
until they had put on twenty pair of oxen on each side. You 
must observe that their oxen are not of the strength of ours, 
that the ground was a loose gravel, and that the truck was 
constructed on the very worst plan, the wheels being fixed to 
the axle trees, and the two axle trees remaining constantly 
in a parallel position with respect to each other. 
They proceeded, however, in this manner to the distance 
of about one hundred yards, when they got into the bed of 
the rivulet abovementioned, called the Bendego. There it 
was stopped by the prominent point of a rock, and as the 
truck was only calculated to move in a straight line, it was 
abandoned. 
I visited this mass on the 17th of January, 1811, and found 
it still on the waggon or truck, where it had been lying for 
five and twenty years. It is situated near the left bank of 
