CHURCH’S MINERALOGIOAL NOTICES. I11.-Mineralog icaI Notices. By A. H. CHURCH. 1. Analysis of a Meteorite from South Africa. THEmeteorite or rather aerosiderite which forms the subject of the present note is reported as having been seen to fall on CHURCH'S MINERALOQIOAL NOTICES. the 20th of March in the present year. The locality of the fall is gireii as about two days' journey N.N.E. of Griqua TOWI~, at a plact. lmowii as Daniel's Kid. The native a Griqua who saw it fall near his hut said it smelt strongly of sulphur and was warm when he picked it up. It was offered by this iiiaii to the Rev. James Good a missionary in Griqua Town and finally given to a Griqua chief-Captain Nicolas Wat erboer ; fibom Captain Wa t erboer Mr. J. R. Gregory obtained it.This meteorite was of small size weighing about 2 lbs. 5 oz. There is it crust upon it ha,ving it dark grey colour here and there speckled with reddish brown spots these spots resulting froni the partial oxidatmion of the ferruginous materials of the stone are more conspicuous a little way beneath the crust'. The ground-mass of this meteorite appears under the micro- scope to be greyish and yellowish white. Pretty uniformly dis- tributed tlzroughoiit its substance are numerous small particles grains and bunches of nickel-iron presenting its usual metallic appearance. Two other minerals may also be detected ill t'his meteorite namely t'he ferrous sulphide lmowii as troilite and tlie somewhat uiidetermined species called schreibersite.The density of this meteorite is rather low considering the large quantity of metallic iron which it contains. Two deter- minations of the specific gravity gave t,he following nuin-bers :-1. D = 3.657. 2. D = 3.678. I think it lil~elythat the pieces with wliich I experimented con- tained minute air-cavities; they were also not free from ferric oxide arising from partial alteration. In order to analyse the meteorite it wits finely powdered and digested in the cold with dilute hydrochloric acid; by this treatment the nickel-iron and troilite were dissolved ; tho quantity of the latter sulphide present was very evident the first portion of the hydrogen evolved by the acid being much mixed with sulphuretted hydrogen. It was found that acetic acid also was capable of decomposing the troilite.The iron and nickel present in the acid solution were separately deter- mined while tlie sulphur was estimated by a separate experi- ment the mineral being oxidized by nitric acid and potassium chlorate and then the snlphuric acid formed weighed as barium sulphate. CHURCH’S IIIKERALOGICAL KOTICES. Beveral att#emptswere made to deteiiiiiiie the schreibersite iii the meteorite. It was approximately estimated by calculating its amount as being ten times that of the unoxidized phos- phorus in the stone ; this method gave uniform results. The final results of .the analpip of several small fragments of the meteorite were as follows :- Nick el-iron .. .. .. .. .. 29-72 Troilite calculated as FeS... .. . . 6-02 Schreibersite ,. me .. .. .. 1.59 Silica and Silicates .. .a .. .. 61-53 Carbon Oxygen other constituents and loss.. 1.14 1oo*oo The nickel-iron alluded to above contained the following proportions of nickel and iron :-a. Iron .. .. .. 94.72 Nickel .. .. .. . 5-18 It appears from other analyses which I have made that the nickel-iron in this stone is not distributed with perfect uni- formity throughout its mass. One fragment gave me 2.03 per cent. of metallic nickel as existing in 100 parts of the meteorite; a proportion which would correspond to 37.17 per cent. of metallic iron or 39-20 of nickel-iron. The silicates of this meteorite are chiefly olivine and labrado- rite the former species constituting by far tlie larger proportion of the powder unaffected by dilute acida.la two portions of the same sample the silicates after deducting the schreibersite &c. amounted to 61.53 per cent. 61.10 ? In the analysis of another fragment the silicates were found not to exceed 48.99 per cent. 2. Action of Xcrlt on Chessylite. In 1864 I commenced a series of experiments on this mbject. I hoped to elucidate the foimation of atacamite when sea- PERKIN ON THE ACTION OF CHLORIDE ETC. water acts on copper ores. The only really successful experi- ment was one in which the following suhstmces had been placed together :-200 cub. cent. of a 10 per cent. soliit.ioii of pure salt gave 2 gins. of chessylite. The blue colour of the finely powdered chessylit,e slowly disappeared a pale green tilit taking its place while at the game time the saline solution became notably alkaline from the conversion of the sodium chloride into carbonate. In the followiiig table the composition of chessylite of its chlorinated product and of atacsmite are compared together :-2CuC03.C~H202 2C~C12,9C~H,02,3Aq.(?) Chessylite. Chlorinated product. Atacamite. CuO.. .. 69.2 59.55 53.6 CO .... 25% -0.. H,O . 5.2 18.14 16.2 cu .... -10-47 14.3 -11.70 16.0 .