VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBSIDIANITES. 
Chief Secretary of the colony — with the Honorable G. S. Evans as 
chairman, with instructions to investigate the claims of the discoverer, 
and owner of the land, and to report whether any steps could be taken 
to secure the meteorites for the National collection. As might have 
been expected, this Commission found it could do nothing. The 
report of the Commission cannot be found in the Parliamentary 
papers of that period. In the Royal Society, Fitzgibbon (46) 
brought forward a motion at the November meeting, in 1862, 
urging the expediency of not only retaining the Cranbourne No. 
1, but also of recovering the Cranbourne No. 2, then in London. 
An amendment, however, was carried, appointing a committee 
of the Society to take what measures were deemed best for 
securing possession of the Bruce Meteorite (the Cranbourne 
No. 1). 
Eventually, Sir Henry Barkly’s suggestion was carried out, and 
the Cranbourne No. 2, which had been purchased from Abel by 
the trustees of the British Museum for the sum of £300, was presented 
to the National Museum, Melbourne, in return for the Cranbourne 
No. 1 intact. The latter meteorite reached the British Museum 
in 1865, but there is nothing to show in what year the Cranbourne 
No. 2 was returned to Melbourne. On arrival at the British 
Museum, some holes were drilled in the under surface of No. 1, 
and it was fixed on a turn-table in the Mineral Gallery, where it is 
now exhibited. The work of removal of this meteorite, the largest 
then known, from Cranbourne to Melbourne was supervised by A. 
A. C. Selwyn, then Director of the Geological Survey of Victoria, 
and his assistant geological surveyor, R. Daintree (afterwards Agent- 
General for Queensland), who took photographs of the specimens. 
Neumayer (42, p. 53) accompanied the party, at Selwyn’s request, 
and he gives the _ date of removal as the' 21st February, 1862. 
Barnes verbally informed the writer that the contract for the 
removal was let for £100 to Enoch Chambers, whose business, 
as previously stated, he was then managing. Both he and 
Chambers went to Cranbourne, taking with them a waggon and 
the necessary tools, and the transit of the specimen occupied about 
three days. 
In a letter dated 16th May, 1862, to Brough Smyth, McCoy, in 
giving an account of the transactions in connexion with the disposal 
of the meteorites, states that Sir Henry Barkly himself defrayed 
the expenses of moving the specimen. On arrival in Melbourne, 
the meteorite was set up in front of the National Museum. Flight 
(22, 23) says that unfortunately it had been placed in the University 
grounds, near the shore, and exposed to the action of sea-water. 
This mistake probably arose from the fact that there is a small 
artificial fresh-water lake in the University grounds, immediately 
in front of the building which was, until 1899, occupied by the 
National Museum collections. 
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