CRANBOURNE, ROWTON, AND MIDDLESBROUGH. 
889 
darstellen.” Such an instance presents itself in the thin paper-like pliant plates which 
lie on the faces of the tetrahedra of nickel-iron and between the large plates of the 
crystals of nickel-iron; they are in the form of equilateral triangles or are lozenge- 
shaped, have the thickness of stout writing paper and, unlike the plates of nickel-iron, 
are quite pliant. They are strongly magnetic, are of a pure white colour, and have 
evidently been extruded from the nickel-iron at the time of formation. They are soluble 
in hydrogen chloride and nitrate. As the examination of them was made in the case 
of some which had been reduced in hydrogen, a further portion picked direct from the 
fragments which had come off the meteorite was taken; both kinds were found to be 
equally pliant. The fresh plates taken direct from the meteorite contained O’688 per 
cent, of phosphorus. Analysis of the plates showed them to consist of : 
Iron . . . 70*138^28 = 2*504 : 5 
Nickel . . . 29'744-f-29'5 = 1*008 : 2 
99*882 
This is evidently an alloy of very well defined composition, which has been extruded 
from the nickel-iron under special conditions when the latter was saturated with it and 
ready to expel it. It is the constituent of nickel-iron which forms the fine lines con¬ 
stituting the Wiedmannstattian figures, and not schreibersite, as usually stated in 
writings on the etched figures of meteoric iron. Tanite is the name which Professor 
Gustav Rose gave to leaves containing 13*2 per cent, of nickel, and which he stated 
to form the figures on an etched surface. Dr. K. G. Zimmermann, in a letter to one 
of the editors of the ‘Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie/ 1861, p. 557, proposed the name 
“ meteorine ” for a new metal occurring in the Cranbourne meteorite which he found 
to contain no copper, nickel, or cobalt. The substance referred to in both cases was 
evidently the little plates above described. As the composition of this mineral has 
now for the first time been definitely made out, I propose to call it Edmondsonite, in 
memory of the late George Edmondson, the Head Master of Queenwood College, 
Hampshire, a great lover of science ; a man with whom I had the honour to be long 
and intimately connected. 
A curious accident should here be described which established the fact that the alloy 
is a definite chemical compound. A number of pieces of nickel-iron from this meteorite 
which had become rusty were heated in a porcelain tube in a current of hydrogen. 
During the progress of the experiment, which was conducted out of doors, it came on 
to rain, and some drops touched the hot tube and cracked it. Air slowly entered the 
crack and oxidised the iron tiJl it acquired a bright blue colour; while the little plate 
of Edmondsonite remained colourless (Plate 53, fig. 1). This result accords with the 
conclusion arrived at by Stodart and Faraday some sixty years ago,* on the oxidation 
of alloys of iron and nickel. An alloy of iron, or rather of the best Bombay wootz, 
* Faraday’s ‘ Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics,’ p. 63. Taylor and Francis, 1859. 
5x2 
