VICTORIAN METEORITES, WITH NOTES ON OBSIDIANITES. 
mentioned previously, with the purpose of deciding whether 
the deposits were native iron, and bore affinity to the local formation, 
or whether they were of meteoric origin. It is evident, from the 
foregoing, that although at least one of the meteorites was definitely 
known as early as the year 1854, their meteoric nature was not 
fully recognised until about the middle of 1860. 
The publication of Fitzgibbon’s note is said to have excited 
great interest in Europe, and the Emperor of Austria wrote 
for further particulars to Sir Henry Barkly. Fitzgibbon there- 
upon again inspected the meteorites at Cranbourne, to verify 
his notes, and, the results being given to Sir Henry Barkly, 
he replied to the Emperor, through Dr. Fercl. (afterwards 
Baron von) Mueller, who forwarded a fragment not much 
larger than a crown piece, detached from the small fist- 
sized piece which Fitzgibbon had given to Sir Henry Barkly. 
Fitzgibbon also gave to Sir Henry Barkly the andiron portion of 
the Cranbourne No. 3 and the horse-shoe. The fist-sized piece and 
horse-shoe were apparently the specimens brought up from Cran- 
bourne by Cameron as exhibits. Fitzgibbon states in his letter 
that there was yet another portion, weighing probably some half- 
hundredweight, which had been lying for a long time at the local 
smithy, and from which the horse-shoe before mentioned and a 
smaller one, which Fitzgibbon had since lost, were cut. The 
residue of this block, he says, he last saw in the possession of Greorge 
Foord, then assayer of the Melbourne Mint. Fitzgibbon did not 
think that the block came off either the Cranbourne No. 1 or the 
Cranbourne No. 2. 
He was wrong in this, for both Neumayer (42, p. 25), and 
Foord (24), in his note to Brough Smyth, mention that the 
part of the Cranbourne No. 1, which originally projected above 
the ground, had been cut off, and from it a horse-shoe had been 
made. Foord says that the smith who made the shoe cut off the 
block, which was about the size of a child’s head, from the main 
mass. 
Bruce, the owner of the Cranbourne No. 1, finding the block in 
the smith s possession, obtained re-possession of it, and forwarded 
it to Melbourne. Subsequently he presented it to Foord, who had 
it cut in two, so as to obtain a section. The larger surface was 
etched, and the piece exhibited at the Melbourne Exhibition of 
1861 (39, p. 249), and afterwards at the exhibition held in London 
in 1862 (37). It passed thence into the possession of A. T. Abel. 
Tlie other section of h oord s block was probably retained by 
him, for the wnter saw what he believes to have been it 
among Foord’s effects at the time of his death, in 1898. What 
has since become of the specimen is not known. Foord gives the 
weight of the block, before cutting, at 35 lbs. 9 ozs. 121 grs adv 
and its specific gravity as 7.5215. It is of interest to note here 
that Mr. Benjamin Barnes, of Queen ’s-road, South Melbourne, then 
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