890 
DR. W. FLIGHT OH THE METEORITES OF 
with 10 per cent, of nickel made by them in 1820, in imitation of the Siberian meteoric 
iron of Krasnojarsk, in which Children found as a mean of three analysis 8'96 per cent.* 
of nickel, was compared, as regards its powers of undergoing oxidation, with pure iron. 
And the authors say: “ The colour, when polished, had a yellow tinge. A piece of 
the alloy has been exposed to moist air for a considerable time together with a piece of 
pure iron; they are both a little rusty, not, however, to the same extent, that with 
the nickel being but slightly acted upon comparatively to the action on the pure iron; 
it thus appears that nickel, when combined with iron, has some effect in preventing 
oxidation, though certainly not to the extent that has at times been attributed to it. 
It is a curious fact that the same quantity of the nickel alloyed with steel instead of 
preventing its rusting appeared to accelerate it very rapidly. 5 ’ 
IV. Troilite of the Cranbourne siderite. 
The Bruce meteorite contains many nodules of troilite lying here and there amongst 
the plates and crystals of nickel-iron, always in rounded masses, only very occasionally 
an ill-defined cleavage plane being met with. They vary in size from half an inch to 
more than two inches in length, are usually covered with a thin layer of graphite, 
sometimes with some daubreelite surrounding them; and one nodule, consisting of 
graphite, was found to enclose troilite which had aggregated inside the graphite in a 
curious way, so that the section of the nodule suggested the outline of a holly leaf. 
Plate 53, fig. 2, represents a section of the nodule of graphite, the shaded enclosed 
part representing the sulphide. Excepting daubreelite, troilite is the only sulphide 
found in this meteorite and, it need hardly be said, was not in the slightest degree 
magnetic. A specimen of pounded and dried mineral was digested with a quantity 
of carbon disulphide, which had been twice distilled, for a day and a-half, and sulphur 
amounting to 0'0207 per cent, was dissolved. A portion chosen for analysis was found 
to possess the following composition :— 
I. 
II. 
III. 
IY. 
Insoluble part . . . 
0-215 
2-297 
.. 
• . 
Iron. 
, . 
62-150 
63-613 
. • 
Sulphur. 
36-543 
.. 
36-207 
36-250 
Nickel. 
, , 
0-446 
, , 
m • 
Copper. 
• . 
0-079 
• . 
• . 
Chlorine. 
• • 
0-130 
i • 
or, as the mean of these determinations : 
* Berzelius found nickel 10*73 per cent, and cobalt 0*46 per cent, in the Krasnojarsk nickel-iron. 
