Slag.

Sat. 19°C white cloud. No wind.
This is the strangest stone in my possession. It’s twice the weight, for its size, compared with others. It can’t be scratched with screw-driver and is slightly magnetic.

It does have some characteristics of a meteorite, the signs of surface melting, its density and metallic qualities. However, another view shows slight layering. That discounts another possibility- magnetite. There remains one other explanation- slag. I picked it up, over ten years ago, near a railway line in Wakes.
Slag is used as ballast on the tracks on many railways around the world. Since Wales is a post-industrial montaine landscape, its origin seems less natural.
If it were a meteorite, it would be the oldest object I have ever touched. That record remains with the Lewisian Gneiss picked up in Assynt last month (2,000 million years).

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