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A Nininger Moment
After the November 9th, 1923 fireball event that inspired Nininger, he set
out learning as much as could be learned on the subject. He found at that
time there was precious little information on the subject written where one
could educate themselves on meteorites. He was able to obtain a copy of
Farrington's Catalog of the Meteorites of North America. It had been
published in 1909. He learned that even in many of the universities of that
day, there was little knowledge and even less knowledgeable people. Figuring
that if no program existed during that age that perhaps he could generate
some program. He was both disappointed and challenged by this aspect of the
field. He realized that he was fast becoming an expert because of his
reading and personal field work.
He also conceived a plan to try and find meteorites on his excursions
looking for new meteorites and of the November 9th fall. He used the money
he was paid from lectures at various localities which often just paid for
his expenses of travel, near cities he wanted to go. His plan was a simple
one and even used today! First he took the public into his confidence and
formed a partnership with them. He would often go to the area papers where
he could get articles written on the subject by information he supplied and
encourage locals to hunt for these precious specimens. He would explain the
scientific value and characteristics of meteorites in these articles. He
would also offer a fair price for any meteorite found which he determined to
be a dollar a pound at that time.
Nininger realized from 1803 to his present time that only about fifty falls
or finds had been recorded or about one in two years.
His personal field work had yield two specimens from Coldwater Kansas in a
little under a year after the November 9th, 1923 fall . He also reasoned
that a planned strategy should increase the number of finds in local areas.
This and his later experiences taught him that meteorites are widely
distributed over the earth and that any considerable search of an large area
will probably result in the recovery of new meteorite specimens.
Source: Find A Falling Star by H.H. Nininger
--AL
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