VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBSIDIANITES. 
it was afterwards investigated by Professor Roscoe* in the Alais 
meteorite. Roscoe regarded it as a mixture of sulphur and a hydro- 
carbon, and Smith thought it might be either sulphur containing 
a minute quantity of a hydrocarbon, or a sulph-hydrocarbon. In 
the Cranbourne meteorite, besides graphite and troilite, the sub- 
stance was associated, according to Smith, with an undefined 
cobalt mineral. The substance was extracted by treating some 
of the powdered nodule with petroleum ether, and allowing the 
solution to evaporate. This procedure yielded acicular crystals, 
giving off a peculiar odour, and consisting of preponderating sulphur, 
with carbon and hydrogen. 
Olivine. — Foord (24, p. 425) says that in one of Daintree's photo- 
graphs there is seen a white spot, representing a white friable sub- 
stance, filling a cavity. This photograph is reproduced here (Plate 
I.), and the spot referred to occurs about half-way up the specimen, 
towards its right side. The substance proved to be carbonate of 
magnesia, probably resulting, Foord thought, from the decomposition 
of olivine, or some other magnesian mineral. Some of it is in the 
mineral collection of the National Museum, Melbourne. It has a 
clay-like appearance, and is stained light-green, with nickel. Besides 
this, and as affording proof of the substance being an original part 
of the meteorite, it is reticulated by fine veins of nickel-iron, more 
or less decomposed into ferric oxide. 
Gases occluded by Nickel-iron. — Flight examined the nickel- 
iron for occluded gases. A portion of the borings removed from 
the under surface was selected, and heated in a porcelain tube 
connected with a Sprengel pump. Gas amounting in bulk to 3 • 59 
times the volume of the iron was extracted, and was found, on analysis, 
to have the following composition : — 
0-12 
31-88 
Carbonic acid 
Carbonic oxide 
Hydrogen . . 
Marsh gas . . 
Nitrogen 
45-79 
4-55 
17-66 
CRANBOURNE No. 2 METEORITE. PLATE II. 
Abel s Iron, Abel’s Fragment, Western Port Iron, Dandenong 
Meteoric Iron, Smaller Cranbourne Mass, etc. 
Class. — Siderite — Broad Oetahedrite. 
W eight . — About 30 cwt. 
Locality. About 2 miles east of Cranbourne, Section 39, Parish 
of Cranbourne [Lat. 38° 8' S., Long. 145° 22' E.l, Countv of 
Mormngton. J 
Date of Discovery . — Probably about 1854. 
Date of First Record. — 1860. 
* Proc. Lit. Phil. Soo. Manchester, 1863, III., p. 57. 
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