VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBSIDIAN1TES. 
General analysis : — 
Iron . . . . - • • • 92 ‘ 78 
Nickel .. .. .. •• 4’ 95 
Cobalt . . . . . . • • 0 ’ 81 
Copper . . . . . . • • 0 ’ 10 
Phosphorus . . . . • • O' 20 
Sulphur O' 04 
Chlorine .. .. .. •• 0'02 
Residue . . . . . . . . O' 19 
99'09 
Amount used, 1 gram. 
Nickel-Iron. — The texture of the iron as seen on the broken 
surface is coarsely granular, and the mass itself looks homogeneous. 
The iron is also very soft and gave much less difficulty in sawing off 
a piece for examination than did the iron of the Langwarrin 
meteorite. In cutting both these meteorites it was noticeable that 
the iron on the outside was harder than that of the inside of the 
specimens. This variation in the hardness may have been brought 
about by the rapid cooling of the highly-heated external layer of 
the meteorites, comparable to the similar hardening met with on 
the surface of iron castings. In one of the plates, besides two 
small nodules of troilite, several patches, apparently somewhat 
harder than the ground mass, could be just distinguished when 
the plate was held at a certain angle. Within 24 hours those 
patches occurring on the edge of the plate, that is towards the outside 
of the meteorite, were brought into prominence by becoming 
first black and afterwards brown through the exudation and oxida- 
tion of the chloride of iron. After the plate had been cleaned, the 
patches were distinguishable from the ground mass by being thickly 
pitted, owing to the chloride of iron having dissolved out some 
easily soluble constituent which was, in all probability, troilite. 
Etching the plate with dilute hydrochloric acid created innumer- 
able very small cavities all over the surface, evidently attributable 
to the removal of the same soluble constituent. These cavities were 
of varying form ; some angular, but none of them quite regular. 
I hey showed an ochre-yellow lining representing the residue left by 
the dissolved substance. The surface of the plate otherwise had 
the appearance of being finely cracked .all over. After immersion 
in stronger acid the surface became covered with a dull black coat 
having, if anything, a slight greenish tinge, and exhibited a fin e 
honeycombed structure in which dark cavities were traced out by 
a delicate network of brighter iron. It was not quite clear whether 
the formation of this cavernous structure was aided by the acid 
enlarging the small holes left by the removal of the soluble constituent 
(? troilite). The iron was very much more rapidly attacked by the 
[ 48 ] 
