VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBSIDIANITES. 
manager for Enoch Chambers’ engineering works, who cut Foord’s 
specimen, informed the writer that, a week or two before Foord’s 
visit, Captain (afterwards Sir Charles) MacMahon, superintendent 
of police, called at the works with a little nugget of iron, about 
half-a-pound in weight, which was worked into a rod for him. He 
told Barnes that it was native wrought iron, and that he knew 
where there was a large deposit of it, and had broken the small piece 
from a mass which projected above the ground. He would not, 
however, dividge the locality where it occurred ; but there can be 
little doubt that it came from Cranbourne, and was, in all pro- 
bability, a fragment of the Cranbourne No. 1. 
In January, 1862, correspondence passed between Professor 
McCoy and James Bruce, who had purchased the Cranbourne No. 1, 
for the nominal sum mentioned before from McKay, on whose 
property it had been found, on the understanding that the specimen 
was to be presented to the British Museum. McCoy asked Bruce 
to give the meteorite to the National Museum, undertaking, on behalf 
of that institution, to bear the expense of excavation and transport. 
Bruce replied that lie could not do this, but that he would allow McCoy 
to retain half, provided the National Museum paid the expenses 
of the removal of the specimen from Cranbourne, and that the 
authorities of the British Museum be communicated with, and 
offered the other half, on the condition that they would be at the 
expense of dividing it. 
This arrangement seems to have been accepted by McCoy, but, 
in the meantime, Bruce, owing to McCoy’s delay in replying to 
his letter, had concluded that his conditions were not acceptable, 
and on the 31st of January handed the meteorite over to Dr. Mueller 
for presentation to the British Museum, according to his original 
intention. Bruce explained the position in a letter to the Melbourne 
Argus of’ the 5th December, 1862. About this stage Sir Henry 
Barkly made an alternative suggestion to Mueller, to the effect 
that if the British Museum purchased the Cranbourne No. 2, and 
sent it to the National Museum, there would be no necessity to cut 
the Cranbourne No. 1. Mueller was apparently agreeable to this 
variation of Bruce’s suggestion. The matter was then referred to 
the authorities of the British Museum (46) to decide as to which 
was the more advisable plan to adopt; for the British Museum to 
purchase the Cranbourne No. 2 from Abel, and present it to the 
National Museum, in return for the Cranbourne No. 1 intact, or 
to have the latter divided. They were unanimously and strongly 
in favour of the former plan. 
Notwithstanding this, a considerable amount of local contro- 
versy ensued, in which it was sought by some to retain the Cranbourne 
No. 1 in the colony. 
A commission (53, p. 424) was appointed, about July, 1862, by 
the Honorable (afterwards Sir) John O’Shanassy— at that time 
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