[meteorite-list] NPA 01-10-1937 Two Girls Guard Meteor Crater (Arizona)

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Dec 31 11:00:06 2004
Message-ID: <BAY4-F1715953E6AA67B313AF32EB39D0_at_phx.gbl>

Paper: Charleston Daily Mail
City: Charleston, West Virginia
Date: Sunday, January 10, 1937
Page: Part of Sunday magazine like insert, pages not numbered

TWO GIRLS Guard MIGHTIEST Fallen Star

World's Largest Meteor Crater Is Furnishing Funds That Will Send Two Arizona
Lasses Through College. That Are Enthused With Their 'Protege'

By Jack Cejnar

GUARDING the mightiest fallen star that ever struck the earth is the unique
but fascinating job of two of Arizona's bewitching, sun-tanned, young women.
     They are Doris ad Lorraine Goeglein, daughters of W.C. Goeglein, a
Winslow (Ariz.) mining engineer. The pretty sisters are the hostesses,
living all alone atop the rim of the giant meteor crater near Canyon Diablo,
twenty miles southwest of Winslow in the blistering Painted Desert.
     Their job is to welcome the more adventurous tourists who divert from
the Santa Fe Trail to make the side trip to this mysterious tomb of the
titanic meteor that came roaring out of the northern sky during prehistoric
days to smash its way deep into the bowels of the earth. The mountainous
meteor is there yet, rich in contents of platinum and nickel, for modern
man, after thirty years of drilling operations, finally has located it at a
depth of 1370 feet.

THE Impact of this celestial visitor when it struck the earth was so
terrific that it blasted a cavity twenty-five times as large as the famous
Yale Bowl and sent boulders weighing as much as 7000 tons flying in all
directions. Strata of limestone rock hundreds of feet underground were
wrenched apart and hurled upward to form a lip of dazzling whiteness rising
160 feet above the level wastes of the surrounding Central Arizona plateau
and to frame the huge crater in sharp contrast against the purple and red
sandstone of the desert.
     In a stone cabin atop this white rim, where the breezes blow
constantly, dwell the two Goeglein sisters, like two copper-sunned Hopi
Indian Princesses, mistresses of all they survey. From their desks through
the open door they watch with field glasses for tourists' cars that may
leave the Santa Fe Trail to head toward their solitary and aerial abode.
     They know that visitors are on the way long before the naked eye can
pick out approaching machines in the illimitable open spaces of the desert.
Motorists can drive almost on the top of the rim, for the cabin of the
sisters is at the end of the trail leading to the edge of the crater.
     The beauty of the desert has cast its spell over the sisters. The
desert sun has tanned them a deep brown. The purple haze of the desert
distances has painted corresponding tints in their eyes. The white snowcap
of majestic San Francisco Peak, towering in the clouds fifty miles to the
northwest, is reflected in their pearly teeth. They move with the ease and
grace of the desert antelope that often come up the path to star at the
sisters and then to bound away again into the desert.
     "We are not lonely up here," explains Doris, the older, who is 22 and
who is planning to enter the University of Arizona to prepare herself for
teaching. "There is so much to see here all the time that we never get
tired of it. We have innumerable rabbits on the rim here, quite a few
antelopes and even some mountain lions to keep us company. We have the
clouds and the 'dust devils' (little whirlwinds common in the Southwest) to
watch, the tourists to look out for, books to read, radio to listen to and
we do make occasional trips to Winslow."

LORRAINE, who is 18 and a senior in Winslow High School, nods emphatically
in agreement.
     "The tourists are a continued source of interest to us," Doris
continues. "We always enjoy seeing their reactions when they first see the
big crater. I love to instruct them about this wonder from beyond this world
of ours and to answer their questions. It's probably because I hope to be a
teacher some day and so it comes natural for me to play a teacher's role
here now.
     "Do you know that few incidents in nature are more dramatic then the
arrival of a meteor, especially a big meteor, probably the burned-out tail
of a huge comet, whizzling through space up among the stars at a rate of
thirty to fifty miles a second?
     "Then it enters the earth's atmospheric belt. In a split second
friction turns it white hot. It lights up the ground below for hundreds of
miles with a flash of supersunlight while thousands of incandescent
fragments fly off its main glowing mass to furnish an indescribably
beautiful pyrotechnical display.
     "Then the fiery mass strikes the earth. For miles around the desert and
the mountain peaks shake as it an earthquake had occurred. High into the air
there shoots a cloud of dust, whose billows are punctured by flying boulders
weighing thousands of tons. Then a hurricane of wind sweeps out from the
scene of impact to level everything in its path and complete the
awe-inspiring tableau of clashing elements.
     "The fallen star is buried deep in the ground. It is there yet, right
below us, waiting for modern man to dig it out some day. That will be soon,
for plans are now being made to start mining operations in the near future."
     This word picture no doubt comes as near painting the actual
catastrophic scene of that far-off prehistoric day as can be drawn. It is a
fact that this spot here is the greatest source of meteoric iron on earth
today. Within a radius of six miles of this huge crater more meteoric iron
has been picked up than has been found in any like area over the entire
surface of the earth.
     The vicinity of the crater has been the scene of many strange meteor
hunts. One of the most famous of such searches was that conducted by Shirl
Herr, of Crawfordsville, Ind., a wealthy miller, whose hobby is treasure
hunting, whose hobby is treasure hunting. Herr invented a new type of
magnetic balance which located buried metal at a depth of fifteen feet, a
hitherto impossible feat. The device is twenty-seven times as sensitive as
the Hughes induction coil, which has a range of only three feet underground.
     This Hoosier miller-inventor tried out his instruments among the
prehistoric Indian mounds of his State, succeeding in locating dozens of
graves of the aborigines. He then went to Arizona to try out the
effectiveness of his device in locating meteoric fragments that showered off
the big comet when it plunged into the earth where the big crater now is.

HIS device was easily portable. It consisted of a finding coil on one end
and an electromagnet at the other end. The magnet produces a pulsating
magnetic field. When a piece of metal or any kind comes within the magnetic
field it throws the field out of balance and causes a hum. Herr has
successfully connected the magnet with an ordinary radio amplifying unit so
the hum can be plainly heard. He wears a special telephone head set built
into a cap. The ear phones enable him to catch the slightest hum.
     So sensitive is this instrument that Herr cannot wear shows with tacks
in them when he carried the device as the tacks would unbalance the set. He
wears tennis shows when treasure hunting. The amplifying set and the power
supplying storage battery are carried in two small grips which can be
suspended from the shoulders.
     Herr's device worked like magic. It located bushels of the small
meteorites which had a high commercial value as souvenirs. Most of these
meteoric fragments were found comparatively close to the surface. The
natives were amazed and tried to buy his device, but he refused to sell. He
later took his device to Europe, where he prowled through ruined castles
searching for buried Roman gold. He also made an unsuccessful search in
Hungary for the legendary casket in which Attilla, the scourge of Europe,
was buried after his death. While he failed in that endeavor, his exploits
with the strange treasure-finding instrument around the big meteor crater
still are talking about there.
     Only a few miles away from Arizona's awe-inspiring big meteor crater is
another wonder of the world, the famous petrified forest of Arizona, to
whose mystery the big meteor here also may be the key. There, in that bit
of a lost world, a remnant of the prehistoric age, amid terrifying and
singular rock formations, lie row upon row huge petrified logs, every
particle of wood replaced by a particle of silica. The logs lie there as
they fell in some prehistoric cataclysm that cut down the primeval forest of
the which they were monarchs.
     Isn't it possible, perhaps even probable, that the hurricane set up by
the fall of the big meteor leveled all these giant trees in one irresistible
squall? In Siberia in recent years the fall of a much smaller meteor set up
a gale that below down trees many miles away, according to reliable reports.
The petrified forest, is only a few miles away from the big meteor crater.
     Doris is full of statistics about the big Arizona meteor.
     "Scientists estimate the big meteor displaced approximately 200,000,000
tons of rocks." she informs visitors. 'Its crater is 4200 feet across and at
the bottom covers an area of ten acres. It is three miles around the crater.
The bottom of the crater is 440 feet below the natural level of the
surrounding desert and 570 feet below the rim top. The average Summer
temperature on the rim is about 106 degrees. It is higher at the bottom of
the crater.
     "Drilling for the meteor body started in 1906. They first drilled for
it straight down in the middle of the crater. After years of fruitless
efforts, scientists concluded the meteor struck the from the north at an
angle. So they started drilling under the south rim and on August11, 1922,
they located the meteor at a depth of 1378 feet. The meteor mass contains a
high proportion of platinum, which will make it profitable to mine it."
     She holds up a piece of the meteorite iron which is polished and shines
like a bit of silverware.
     "The Hopi Indians have a legend about this meteor crater," she says.
"It is that three of their gods came down from the clouds one day. One came
down here and two others descended to the north of here. This has led many
to believe that three meteors fell, one here and two smaller ones north of
here. Search has been made for the other two meteors, but thus far they have
not been found."
     Cedar trees cut on the rim show 700 annual rings, according to the
pretty hostess. Evidence the rock erosion and the filling up of the center
by the auction of the wind and rain has led scientists to estimate the age
of the crater at 5000 to 10,000 years or more.

THE two sisters have been holding down their jobs at the crater rim since
1926. Their earnings will finance their education, they say.
     The hum of an airplane comes from overhead.
     "There's the transcontinental plane," the sisters chorus and rush
outside to wave at the pilot banking his ship high overhead so his
passengers can get a good bird's eye view of the big "hole."
     "These planes pass overhead three times a day," the sisters explain.
"We always wave at them."
     Pearly teeth exposed in a good-by smile, Doris added:
     "We have a lot of fun out of life up here. It's a great place to study
nature and people. Some people give us a real 'kick.' Every now and then
some tourist back East comes up here, is properly amazed by what he sees and
then smacks us down with the question: 'Did you see it fall?' "

Copyright by Lodger Syndicate

(end)

Article includes captioned photographs of the Herr Device, the Goeglein
sisters in front of their cabin, and Meteor Crater. Also shown is an
illustration of what the meteorite might have looked like falling.


Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com
http://www.imca.cc

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Received on Fri 31 Dec 2004 10:59:37 AM PST