Fine-grained Varieties Research Articles

Report on the presentation of two specimens of iron by Professor Stromeyer, Foreign Memb. R. S.

Professor Stromeyer, Foreign Memb. R.S., presented two speci­mens, one of the coarse-grained, the other of the fine-grained variety, of the remarkable mass of iron lately discovered near Magdeburg, and an account of which had been laid before the Royal Society of Got­tingen on the 14th of last month. This iron was found, in several de­tached lumps, about four feet below the mould, by Mr. Kote, who considered himself the more authorized to pronounce it meteoric, as, in the chronicles of Magdeburg, the descent of a fiery meteor is re­corded as having happened in the year 938. Professor Stromeyer has subjected this iron to a minute analysis, the results of which are very-interesting, inasmuch as, besides the alloy of nickel and cobalt, usually present in meteoric iron, he unexpectedly found a considerable portion of molybdenum, — a rare metal on our planet, occurring only in two combinations, viz. with sulphur, as glance molybdenum, and, as molybdic acid combined with oxide of lead, in the yellow lead ore of Carinthia and a few other places.