More than 22,000 different meteorites have been catalogued in collections around the world (as of 1999) of which 95% are stony types [Grady, 2000]. About a thousand new meteorites are added every year, primarily from Antarctic and hot-desert areas. Thus there is a need for rapid systematic and non-destructive means to characterise this unique sampling of the solar system materials. Magnetic properties, including susceptibility and natural remanent magnetisation (NRM), can satisfy this need; other types of rock magnetic measurements (hysteresis, thermomagnetic curves, NRM demagnetisation, etc.) destroy the paleomagnetic signal and require the main mass of the studied meteorite be cut. Besides classification, the magnetic properties of meteorites have a direct implication for the...