[meteorite-list] 1912 Holbrook Argus

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:48:56 2004
Message-ID: <3B961395.BABB47BE_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Dave Andrews wrote:

> I have a scan of that 1912 Holbrook
> Argus article. It can be found here:

http://strewnfield.tripod.com/argus.html


Hello Dave and Holbrookers :-)

Thank you for the Holbrook Argus article. It was great fun
reading it, especially some of the orthographic, linguistic
and meteor(it)ic oddities, and the choice of words :-)

> Meteor Explosion Excites P o p u l a c e

I think nowadays we would prefer: inhabitants, people, population, as
"populace" also implies a distinction between common people and the
higher classes.

> An unusual phenomena occured here last Friday
> when told of the occurence, Thomas Jefferson

The second 'r' in "occurred" and "occurrence" is missing several times,
but toward the end of the text the author suddenly remembers the correct
spelling:

> native iron, which has a most exceedingly rare occurrence terrestrially

The reporter uses the plural form but it should be the
singular form of the word phenomenon because of the "an":

> A n unusual p h e n o m e n a occured here last Friday

> a smoky trail s i m i l i a r to the exhaust of a automobile

> it was heard at Whiteriver o n the south and Keams on the north,
> or about one hundred miles both north and south of Holbrook.

"on the south ... on the north" instead of
"to the south ... to the north"

> The rock as near as can be judged was scattered
> over an area of more than one square mile.

Right, because in his 1912 Prelimiary Note, W.M. Foote writes:

The stones were scattered over an ellipsoidal area roughly estimated
by two finders to be about one-half mile wide and three miles long.

> the resistant quality is about like that of sandstone, an unusual
> condition for a meteorite, they generally being hard and flint-like.

Unless, for example, you have very friable meteorites like Bjurböle,
Vavour, Dhofar 015, Felix, Pasamonte, Rochester, Saratov, or Tagish
Lake.

> The most probable and most generally accepted theory of the phenomena
> is that the meteor strayed from its orbit and coming in contact with
> a cold cloud air current, an explosion followed.

Shouldn't that be "meteoroid" instead of "meteor" unless the writer
refers to the light generated by the meteoroid (which he doesn't).

> a cold cloud air current, an explosion followed.

Here I think it was the reporter who "s t r a y e d" a bit from the
scientific facts of a breakup of a meteorite in the atmosphere :-)

> the bulk of the meteorite is yet to be found as the specimens
> gathered so far could have scarcely caused so large an explosion.

Part one of this statement was correct - we all know that specimens are
still being found but part two should be digested more critically.
Vilna, an L5 chondrite,
produced only about 140 mg of material but sound phenomena were heard at
a distance of 70 km. Peace River, another L-chondrite (L6), produced
"only" about 45 kg but was heard over a 4000 square mile area, and last,
but not least, famous Lost City (H5) produced 17 kg and was heard over
300 km^2.

> Report was received Wednesday that a big meteor fell at what appeared to
> be six or eight miles north of Cosnino at about 9 o'clock Tuesday evening.

> Many Holbrook citizens witnessed this luminous
> ball on its terrific earthward flight.

"At about 9 o'clock"? A second report seems to have been mixed into
the report on Holbrook because the Holbrook shower occurred at about
19:15 hrs.

> In due time a t h r o u g h investigation into
> the composition of the Aztec fall will be made

> a total of between 760 and 800 authenticated falls

Meanwhile there are almost 1200 meteorite falls worldwide.

> the fifty ton mass found by Peary in Greenland

The combined mass of the "Tent", the "Woman" and the "Dog"
is "only" 34, 287 kg because the weight of "Ahnigito" (The Tent)
was long in doubt.

In the Arizona Highways article, it's the
following words that leave me little confused:

> The bigger fragments ... and blazed too h o t to pick up.

"Too hot to pick up" ... hmmm?!

But let's get back to the 1912 Holbrook Argus:

> the two notable differences being that quartz is
> practically an unknown constituent in meteorites

How times and scientific results have changed:

Quartz and tridymite were observed, for example, in thin sections of the
Chaves howardite. The SiO2 in the Chlumec iron meteorite corresponds to
quartz and to tridymite, the DaG 489 shergottite contains quartz, etc.

> Other theories have held that they are in the nature
> of volcanic bombs from the now extinct lunar volcanoes

I wish Darryl could read that !!!

> and that in their fall the earth is merely reclaiming
> its own which has been cast out as volcanic bombs

Terrestrial meteorites !

> Naturally it is scarcely to be hoped even that basis
> for absolutely definite conclusion will ever be found

A very hesitant, careful remark ... or even pessimistic ???

> fragments left over or derived from we know not what source

Asteroid 6 Hebe as the parent body of the H-type ordinary
chondrites or Vesta for the HEDs, for example. No problem
for us, but in 1912, at the time of Chester G. Gilbert ...


Sorry, I couldn't resist :-)

Bernd
Received on Wed 05 Sep 2001 07:59:17 AM PDT