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The mafs (of which fome confiderable pieces 
have already been received) is rufty only on the 
furface; but the interior has been preferved by a 
kind of black varnilh that is fpread all over the 
iron, which is of an irregular form blunted at the 
corners. 
This iron may be bent and hammered when;cold, 
artd, when moderately heated, may be fhaped into 
nails and other tools; but, in a violent heat, and 
efpecially if in order to feparate it from the fparry 
particles it is thrown into fmelting ovens, it becomes 
brittle, granulated, and will' not join again in the 
forge. 
This mafs was found lying on the furface, at 
the top of a high woody eminence, not far from the 
mountains called, by the Tartars, nemir, between 
the two rivulets Ubei and Sifim, which fall from the 
right into the jenisei, a little below Abakanlkoi 
Oftrog, and fcarce ioo fathom from a rich mine of 
hard ore of loadftone.. 
The appearance and' nature of this mafs,. and 
the qualities of the iron, of which it chiefly com- 
lifts, are fo decifive, that it cannot be doubted but 
that it has been thus produced by Nature ; and if fa, 
the exiftence of native iron; which has hitherto been 
queftioned, is eflablifhed beyond all contradiction;, 
efpecially if it be conlidered, that no trace of any 
old iron work, of which there are. many in the Si- 
berian mountains, is to be met with in the defart 
where the mafs was found p and that the mine above- 
mentioned was not opened . before the year 1752, 
when the miners,, who were there employed, flrfl 
difcovered this mafs of iron fince which time no 
further notice had been taken of it. 
xlvi: of 
