[meteorite-list] 1864: fiction or fact? help!

From: chris aubeck <caubeck_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Sep 21 09:36:56 2004
Message-ID: <20040921133651.85835.qmail_at_web50802.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear list,

I would very much like to know how much of the
following may be based on scientific procedure and
observation, and whether as a whole it makes any sense
at all. I found the text in an article dated
originally to 1864 and have translated it to the best
of my ability from Spanish (in which I'm fluent, but
this was very technical). It was published in
Argentina.

As usual with this kind of thing, I don't know where
to turn, except to the experienced guys on this list.

I'll be doing the internet equivalent of sitting
"glued to the screen" hoping someone can enlighten me!

Very best,

Chris

*****************************************************


I came across a great black rock, ovoid in shape and
measuring around 30 rods in diameter in its widest
part by 45 rods in length. I was quite astonished on
seeing such a large, isolated stone, in the middle of
the plains; what caught my attention above all was its
dark and vitrified appearance at first sight. I
examined it thoroughly and shortly I had no doubt, I
was standing before an aerolite
 but few of such
enormity have been found to date.

Enthused by my discovery I telegraphed Mr. Smith (a
geologist and a friend of mine who was then in C?rdoba
on the way to the mountains) to come and examine this
curious piece of planetary matter. This he did and a
few days later my friend Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones and I
went off to investigate the aerolite scientifically.
On the afternoon of the same day we began to bore a
hole into it to analyze the diverse materials of which
its interior was composed, and for this purpose we
employed an Argentine laborer named Jes?s Villegas.
A notable feature, at first sight, are the cracks and
crags from which considerable pieces must have come
loose: the whole mass is covered in a certain black
enamel, from 3 to 9 ? inches thick. The interior
contains 5% graphitic carbon, magnetic iron sulphate,
a magnesium and iron carbonate, which could be
considered a kind of breu merite, an extremely rare
substance; silica, talc, some complex minerals that
are not to be found on earth, for example,
Sheibirsite, which is a double phosphorus of iron and
nickel, ammonium hydrochloride, a very volatile salt,
whose presence in the aerolite proves that the candent
state of the surface did not last a long time and that
the heat did not penetrate to the interior of the
mass, and this concords with the low conductivity of
its composition, and finally it contained cesium and
some alkaline silicates that we are not familiar with.
  
At seven rods we have found ophite; at 15, granite.
The stone was very hard and our boring progressed very
slowly.

******************************************************

=====
http://embark.to/magonia

C / Mayor 51, 3 B,
28013 Madrid
Spain

Tel: 600376311 (with image capabilities)


        
        
                
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Received on Tue 21 Sep 2004 09:36:51 AM PDT