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(4 1861 Dec 24 Tues the hammer - found it very hard - hard as hardened steel - & that it [[underlined]] was not malleable. [[/underlined]] My conclusion was that it must be a Metorite or AErolite! My investigations of the subject seemed to make this conclusive. The following was not foreign to the subject as I pursued my examinations: "In 1620 a violet explosion was heard at a village in India, & at the same time a luminous body fell to the Earth. The officer of the district immediately repaired to the spot to examine the cause of the phenomenon. He employed some men to dig, & as they threw up the earth he found the heat to increase very perceptibly, till finally they reached a lump of Iron excessively hot. This curiosity was sent to Court, & the King had it weighed in his presence. He then ordered it to be made into a sabre, a knife & a dagger, for his own use. But the workmen found, after several trials, that the thing was impossible, as the metal [[underlined]] was not malleable, [[/underlined]] but [[underlined]] shivered under the hammer; [[/underlined]] they afterwards mixed with it one third part of common iron, when they were able to produce excellent blades. The historian of this king adds - During his reign the Earth retained order & regularity: raw iron fell from [[end page]] [[start page]] (5 1861 Dec 24 Tues. lightning, which was, by his world-subduing authority, converted into a sabre, a knife & a dagger." As I could find nothing upon the Island corresponding in look or [[underlined]] fact [[/underlined]] to this one piece, irresistable was the result in my mind that this was of [[underlined]] foreign [[/underlined]] origin. It struck me as having [[underlined]] peculiar characteristics [[/underlined]] wh. belong to no native rocks or stones with wh. I was acquainted. "Great falls of Meteoric stones are recorded in the Chinese annuls as early as B.C.700: & Aristotle who lived 300 years before our era, supposed the same phenomenon to be caused by fragments of rocks having been raised by whirl-winds & after remaining for a time in the regions of space, have again found their way to our Earth. Showers of stones are mentioned by Pling & Lion. Some of the Greek philosophers attributed to them a solar origin. Pling says that Anaxagoras, an Ionian philosopher, who lived in the 5th Century before Christ, even predicted a fall of aerolites from the Sun. Diogenes Laertius entertained the opinion that the enormous meteorite which fell at Aegos Potamos B.C.465, had been projected from the Sun." [[end page]] [[start page]] (6 1861 Dec 24 Tues But somehow, I fixed in my my mind that the Moon was the origin of this strange piece of metal! Pursuing this subject, I found something in the following congenial to the thought: "Many philosophers have supposed Meteorites to be fragments of the rocks of the Moon ejected by lunar volcanoes; those lumious spots on the unilluminated parts of the Moon's disc having been ascribed to light emitted by burning mountains. The opinion that Meteorites are fragments thrown from lunar craters was first entertained by Jerzago, an Italian philosopher in the year 1620 on the occasion of the fall of a Meteorite at Milan, wh. killed a Franciscan monk. But the velocity of projection must be equal to more than 20 miles per second in order to throw these masses of stone beyond the influence of the Moon's attraction, whereas, the projectile force of any terrestial volcano is not equal to one mile in a second; therefore it seems highly improbable that meteorites can be of lunar origin." This much may be said of the [[underlined]] concluding [[/underlined]] remarks of the author of the above. We know nothing of the forces the Almighty may in His Wisdom employ in the volcanoes of the Moon (if such there be) in projecting fragments of rocks. Man knows not but the velocity of projection there may equal 20, [[end page]] [[start page]] (7 1861 Dec 24 Tues. [[underlined]] 100 or 1000 miles per second! [[/underlined]] In continuation let me say: Because [[underlined]] our [[/underlined]] Earth moves in its orbit, around the Sun at the rate of only sixty eight thousand miles per hour, does not argue that the twin stars, No 61 Cygnus, are not travelling together through space at the almost [[underlined]] incredible [[/underlined]] velocity of [[underlined]] Six thousand millions of miles in an hour! [[/underlined]] - Or, one million, six hundred & sixty six thousand & sixty six miles per second! [[underlined]] But after all my "speculations" [[/underlined]] on this supposed rare specimen, wh. I found on Look-Out, on Wednesday Sept 5th, 1861, [[underlined]] To-day [[/underlined]] I learn that it was taken [[underlined]] there [[/underlined]] by Innuits who got it from Kuf-se-geer-ark-ju-a. Instead of being a piece of the Sun or Moon, it proves to be a relic of Frobisher's Expedition here in 1578. One of the numbers that made up his ships' [[underlined]] ballast Iron! [[/underlined]] Twer-oong asked me to-day as her face rested on her hands by the table on wh. I was writing; 'With whom I expected to spend the winter'? I answered: Shev-er-ming (did not know) I then asked her: If I could live with her & winga (husband) & family. She answered: 'Ar-pu-[[?luerg]]'.
