Page:The Book of the Damned (Fort, 1919).djvu/279

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BOOK OF THE DAMNED
273

1878, publishes a notice that, according to the Yuma Sentinel, a meteorite that "resembles steel" had been found in the Mohave Desert. In Nature, Feb. 15, 1894, we read that one of the meteorites brought to the United States by Peary, from Greenland, is of tempered steel. The opinion is that meteoric iron had fallen in water or snow, quickly cooling and hardening. This does not apply to composition. Nov. 5, 1898, Nature publishes a notice of a paper by Prof. Berwerth, of Vienna, upon "the close connection between meteoric iron and steel-works' steel.

At the meeting of Nov. 24, 1906, of the Essex Field Club, was exhibited a piece of metal said to have fallen from the sky, Oct. 9, 1906, at Braintree. According to the Essex Naturalist, Dr. Fletcher, of the British Museum, had declared this metal to be smelted iron—"so that the mystery of its reported 'fall' remained unexplained."