III.—Supplement to a Chapter in the History of Meteorites

Extract

Two masses of meteoric iron were discovered in Victoria in 1854, and they were first reported upon by the late W. Haidinger in the Sitzungsberichte A kad. Wiss. in 1861. The smaller block became the property of Mr. Abel, the engineer; the larger one was purchased by Mr. A. Bruce, now of Chislehurst. It appears that Mr. Bruce had seen a piece of iron, which had the appearance of being meteoric iron, in the fireplace of a squatter there, and he asked the man if any more of that kind was to be met with in that neighbourhood. He was conducted to a spot in the adjoining parish of Sherwood, where an irregular spur of iron projected from the surface, and he there and then purchased it with the intention of presenting it to the British Museum. Later on, when they proceeded to dig round it and uncover its sides, they were astonished at its large size. Various sums of money were offered Mr. Bruce for the splendid block, but his one answer to all such offers was, “No; I have bought it for a sovereign; and I am going to give it to the British Museum.” As has been stated, a point only of the iron was above the surface. A photograph was taken on the spot by my late friend, Mr. R. Daintree, the Agent-General for Queensland, after the tertiary sandstone inclosing it had been removed. It is the same sandstone which crops out at Broughton, with basalt from 12–15 feet below, as on the coast at Western Port. Bruce states that the lower bed is Silurian, and that the block of iron penetrated a foot or more into it.