VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBS1DIANITES. 
darkened, and the white ones assumed a yellow tint. Further 
heating melted them all into clear globules at apparently the 
same temperature. Some of the mixed crystals, it not being 
possible to separate them, were heated in a closed tube, 
with the result that a heavy sulphur, and a white amorphous sub- 
limate were formed, accompanied by a strong smell of sulphuretted 
hydrogen. On further heating the sulphuretted hydrogen was 
succeeded by a smell of sulphur, and a blotchy, blackish deposit was- 
left covering the bulb of the tube. At the bottom of the tube some 
solid black particles also remained. The crystals, warmed with 
sulphuric acid, broke up into carbon particles and globules of sulphur, 
while the solution assumed a dark colour. Another part of 
the mixed crystals was treated with absolute alcohol, and, 
although the solvent action was not apparent to the eye 
even after prolonged treatment, clumps of short, pearly-white 
crystals, mostly acicular in form, were deposited when the liquid 
was carefully poured off and evaporated. These crystals, when 
heated in the closed tube, gave the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen 
and sulphur that had been emitted by the mixed crystals, 
besides a very similar sublimate, but a brownish solid residue 
was left in the bottom of the tube. When the solution from 
a second treatment with ether was evaporated a deposit 
consisting almost entirely of yellow octahedra crystallized out. 
Some of these, heated in a closed tube, behaved very similarly 
to the mixed crystals, with the exception that the sublimate was 
nearly all sulphur, and the residual solid, black particles, were absent. 
The third treatment, curiously enough, resulted in products in no way 
different from those derived from the first treatment. A fourth 
treatment produced a thin white deposit, closely adhering to the watch 
glass, which carbonized on heating, and gave off an organic smell. 
The foregoing tests point almost certainly to the presence of 
two distinct substances soluble in petroleum ether, one being sulphur 
in great preponderance, and the other a carbon compound of unknown 
composition. The matter is thus left very much m the position 
it was at the time Smith’s work was carried out, and, as far as the 
writer is aware, nothing has since been done. It may reasonably be 
assumed that the hydrocarbon, for which the sulphuretted hydrogen 
and carbonaceous matter in the sulphur crystals was responsible, 
was there only as an impurity, and not in combination, and that the 
acicular crystals and aggregates are only a form of the sulphur 
carrying a slightly larger amount of the hydrocarbon 
The presence of substances of such a nature as these suggested 
the idea that they were not original constituents and the asso- 
ciation of lawrencite indicated a possible agent m their production. 
Experiments were accordingly made with some Langwarrm troihte. 
The mineral was finely ground and treated for ether soluble sub- 
tanceT After some days, the solution was poured off and 
[ 43 ] 
