Among the minerals found in meteorites, there is none which has attracted the general notice to such a degree as the metallic nickel-iron, especially from the fact that it has hitherto never been seen for certain in any telluric rocks. Nay, so much stress was laid upon this latter circumstance, that such iron was thought never to occur here on earth without having been carried to us from the outer universe, and ever since Chladni's report on the iron-mass of Pallas, every loose block of iron lying on the surface of the ground, nay, even deeply imbedded in it, has generally been declared to be a meteorite, if it only contained a certain percentage of nickel and, which was not always the case, manifested some crystalline texture, called after the discoverer "Widmannstäitten's figures."