CRANBOURNE, ROWTON, AND MIDDLESBROUGH. 
887 
When it reached the British Museum some holes were drilled into its under surface, 
and it was fixed on a turntable in the first room of the Mineral Gallery. It was found 
to decay to a considerable extent; fragments oxidised and crumbled off, and drops of 
iron chloride exuded here and there. This, however, was stopped to a very great 
extent by injecting it with clear shellac varnish, and keeping it in a glass case pro¬ 
vided with trays containing caustic lime. By this means the destruction has been 
reduced to a minimum. It was noticed that the part of the meteorite which was so 
rapidly decaying presented a very marked crystalline character; that the tetrahedral 
structure broke up into plates, and between them were very thin plates of another 
constituent, which less readily underwent change. The action of moisture on these 
series of plates was like that of the exciting liquid of a galvanic cell, and caused the 
oxidation to proceed very rapidly. Many of the fragments which came off at this 
time were selected and reduced again to the firm solid original condition and present 
beautiful structure. Of this I shall have more to say later on. 
II. Proportion of nickel and other constituents present in the nickel-iron. 
It was at once noticed that the meteorite consisted entirely of metallic minerals, that 
it contained no rocky matter whatever. One of the first experiments which suggested 
itself was to determine whether the iron was only alloyed with nickel, cobalt, copper, 
See., or whether it contained combined carbon. A weighed portion was suspended by 
a platinum wire, carefully covered up with glass and caoutchouc, in a solution of 
recrystallised salt, and connected with a Bunsen cell, in the apparatus shown in the 
accompanying woodcut. The positive cell was kept slightly acid from time to time 
as it grew alkaline. Nickel-iron, weighing 5*9989 grms., was dissolved in this way, 
MDCCCLXXXII. 5 X 
