Professor Pallas, many years ago, discovered lying on the surface of a hill in Siberia, a mass of native iron, which weighed 1680 pounds. It was considered by the natives as a holy relic, and was believed by them to have fallen from heaven. M. de Bougainville, the French circumnavigator, discovered, on the banks of the river La Plata, in South America, an enormous mass of native iron, which he calculated to have weighed about 100,000 pounds. And a mass of native iron, appearing in every respect to have been of meteoric origin, was, some years ago, discovered in the district of St. Jago del Estro, in South America. It was in the middle of a great plain, and had no rock nor mountain near it, and was calculated to have weighed about thirty tons. The origin of meteoric stones is involved in great obscurity. Some writers have imagined that they might be projected from distant volcanoes; others, that they may have been detached from rocks, and had their substance considerably changed by a concurrence of natural causes; others, that they may have been generated in the air by a combination of mineral substances; and others, that they may have been projected from the moon. The latter was the opinion of La Place the astronomer, who says that a mass, if thrown by a volcano from the moon, with a velocity of about a mile and half per second, it will thence be projected beyond the sphere of the moon’s attraction, and into the confines of that of the earth; the consequence of which will be, that the mass must presently fall to the earth, and become a part of it. 235. _LOADSTONE, or MAGNETIC IRONSTONE, is a compact blackish kind of iron ore, which is possessed of the power of attracting iron, as well as every substance which contains ferruginous particles. It is betwixt four and five times as heavy as water._ This mineral is found in masses of different form and size in most of the iron mines of Europe and America, and, when submitted to the furnace, it yields a considerable proportion of metal. It makes excellent bar iron, but very indifferent cast iron. In Sweden, and particularly at Roslager, magnetic iron stone is found quite pure, and the iron that is wrought from it is imported in considerable quantities into Great Britain, for the purpose of being manufactured into steel. The appellation of load, or leading stone, has been given to this kind of iron from its magnetic virtues; for it is not only endowed with the property of attracting iron, but also of pointing itself, and even enabling a needle touched with it to point, towards the poles of the world. We are, however, entirely ignorant what is the cause of this very extraordinary property. Artificial magnets, constructed of steel, not only possess all the essential virtues of the genuine loadstone, but even in a much higher degree. The natural magnet is consequently now little esteemed except as an object of curiosity.