[Footnote 111: Annales de Chimie, tom. xxxv. Messidor, p. 47.] 214. Specimens of native iron have been found, less remarkable than the preceding for their size, but in circumstances that excluded all idea of artificial fusion. Of this sort was MARGRAAF'S specimen of native iron, the first of the kind that was known; it consisted of small bits of soft and malleable iron, found in the heart of a brown iron-stone.[112] This makes it certain, that native iron is a natural production, and the mere circumstance of great magnitude, in the specimens before mentioned, does not entitle us to doubt of their having that same origin. It is a circumstance, besides, not in the least material to this argument; the smallest piece of native iron being as much a proof of fusion as the greatest; and the specimen of Margraaf being just as conclusive in favour of the Huttonian Theory, as those of Pallas or De Celis, supposing their reality in mineral productions to be completely established. À metal malleable and ductile, in ever so small a quantity, cannot be the result of precipitation from a menstruum, without a very particular combination of circumstances. Such a metal, can the other hand, can be readily produced by igneous fusion; so that here the negative and affirmative parts of the inductive argument may both be regarded as complete. [Footnote 112: Kirwan's Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 156.] 215. Mr Kirwan, in order to account for the magnitude of the two large specimens mentioned above, supposes, that small pieces of native iron (about the formation of which he appears to have no difficulty) have been originally agglutinated by petroleum, and left bare, when the surrounding stony or earthy masses either withered or were washed off.[113] This is no doubt the most singular of all the opinions which have been advanced on the subject; and, as it borrows nothing from analogy, it admits of no proof, and requires no refutation. None but a chemist of eminence could have ventured with impunity on an assertion so inconsistent with all the phenomena and principles of his science. [Footnote 113: Geol. Essays, p. 405.] 216. A remark of the same author, on the subject of the native gold found in the county of Wicklow in Ireland, is entitled to more attention. "That these lumps of native gold," he says, "were never in fusion, is evident from their low specific gravity, and the grains of sand found in the midst of them. I found the specific gravity of a lump of the size of a nutmeg to be only 12800, whereas, after fusion, it became 18700."[114] [Footnote 114: _Ibid._ p. 402.]