158 NATURAL HISTORY. [NORTH 
The system adopted for the arrangement of the Minerals, with occa¬ 
sional slight deviations, is that of Berzelius, founded upon the electro¬ 
chemical theory and the doctrine of definite proportions, as developed 
by him in a memoir read before the Royal Academy of Sciences of 
Stockholm. The detail of this arrangement cannot here be entered 
into : it is, however, partly supplied by the running titles at the out¬ 
sides of the glass Cases, and by the labels within them. 
The first two Cases, and part of the third, contain the electro-positive 
native metals: iron, copper, bismuth, lead, silver, mercury, palladium, 
platinum, osmium and gold. 
Case 1. Of native iron , found in insulated masses, and dissemi¬ 
nated in meteoric stones, the following specimens are deposited 
nativeiron from Gross-Kamsdorf in Saxony;—two small polished pieces 
of the mass found in Southern Africa, which weighed about 250 pounds, 
and is now in the cabinet of Haarlem:—fragment of the iron from 
Senegal;—specimens of the native iron from Otumpa, in the Gran 
Chaco Gualamba, in South America, described by Don Rubin de 
Celis, who estimated the weight of the mass to be about 300 quintals, 
or 15 tons*;—a large piece detached from the celebrated mass of 
Siberian native iron, which was discovered by Pallas on the summit of 
a hill between Abakansk and Belskoi Ostrog, on the banks of the Jeni- 
sey, where it was considered by the Tartars as a sacred relic: 
the mass originally weighed about 1680 pounds;—a mass of 
iron from Atacama, resembling that of Siberia, and also containing 
much of the olivine-like substance within its cells;—apiece of the large 
mass from Ellenbogen, in Bohemia, and another of that found on the 
Collina di Brianza, in the Milanese;—two specimens of the mass of 
iron found at Lenarto in Hungary, one of which (being polished and 
treated with acid) exhibits the outlines of imperfect crystals ;—a small 
piece of the large mass in the Capitania di Bahia, Brazil;—another, 
from that found in the province of Durango, Mexico;— f. portion of 
the mass from Zacatecas, Mexico, described by Humboldt;—a specimen 
detached from the large mass of iron preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle;— 
an Esquimaux knife and harpoon (from Davis’s Straits, Lat. 76° N. 
Long. 66° W.), the iron of which is meteoric;—a large piece of the 
problematical mass of iron discovered at Magdeburg, and which, accord¬ 
ing to Stromeyer’s analysis, contains (besides nickel and cobalt) also 
copper, molybdenum, and arsenik ;—some small portions of the meteoric 
iron from Texas;—some of the exfoliated iron from Buncombe, North 
Carolina;—a polished piece of the iron found at Otseya, New York (see 
American Journal of Science for 1841). Of meteoric stones or meteorites 
(classed with native iron, because they all contain this metal, generally 
alloyed with nickel) the following are placed in chronological order:— 
a large fragment of the stone which fell at Ensisheim, in Alsace, Nov. 
7th, 1492, when Emperor Maximilian, then king of the Romans, was 
on the point of engaging with the French army : this mass, which 
weighed 270 pounds, was preserved in the cathedral of Ensisheim till 
the beginning of the French revolution, when it was conveyed to the 
public library of Colmar;—one of the many stones which fell, July 3rd, 
* The large mass of iron placed against the wall under the window in Room I., 
was sent from Buenos Ayres, by Mr. (since Sir Woodbine) Parish; it is supposed 
to be part of that of Otumpa: its weight 1400 pounds. 
