[meteorite-list] More on Jefferson

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 16:28:47 2005
Message-ID: <DIIE.000000410000358C_at_paulinet.de>

ASTRONOMY NOW, Dec 99, p. 74

Key Moments in Astronomy

Talking boldes - An astronomical controversy explodes in December 1807.

Thomas Jefferson, third wisest President of the United States, is doomed to
appear in astronomy books as an awful warning to us all. Author after author
claims that Jefferson sneered at meteors. When one exploded over Weston,
Connecticut, on December 14, 1807, he is said to have declared "I should
sooner believe that Yankee professors should lie than that stones should
fall from heaven".

The presence of "Yankee" and the triple "should" instantly suggests that the
quote is apocryphal. Jefferson's speech was unfailingly elegant and, as so
often, the truth is more entertaining than the legend.

At 7a.m. on December 14, Mrs. Gardener of Wenham, Massachusetts, chanced to look
out of the window. She was startled to notice a bright object whizzing across the
sky and exclaimed "where is the Moon going to?" Recovering her composure she watched
as a brilliant fireball soared overhead. A few moments later Judge Wheeler of Weston
was taking an early morning stroll. "The attention of Judge Wheeler was first drawn
by a sudden flash of light, which illuminated every object. Looking up he discovered
in the north a globe of fire, just then passing behind a cloud. Its apparent diameter
was about one half or two thirds the apparent diameter of the full moon. Its progress
was not so rapid as that of common meteors or shooting stars".

No common meteor would have dared appear before the Judge, who admiringly noted its
"brisk scintillation... It did not vanish instantaneously, but grew, pretty rapidly,
fainter and fainter, as a red hot cannon ball would do, if cooling in the dark, only
with much more rapidity... [followed by] three loud and distinct reports... [and] a
rapid succession of reports less loud".

150 kg of stony fragments were eagerly collected. One of the collectors wrote to President
Jefferson, with a rather unusual proposal. The statesman replied on February 15, 1808, with
a characteristic combination of politeness and sly wit. "Sir," he wrote. "I have duly received
your letter of the 8th instant, on the subject of the stone in your possession, supposed meteoric.
Its descent from the atmosphere presents so much difficulty as to require careful examination.
But I do not know that the most effectual examination could be made by the members of the
National Legislature, to whom you have thought of exhibiting it ... I should think that an enquiry
by some one of our scientific societies ... would most likely to be directed with such caution
and knowledge of the subject, as would inspire a general confidence."

This elegant evasion is the origin of the myth of Jefferson as meteor-hater. In reality the President
was sceptical of the ability of contemporary science to do much more than guess at the nature of the
Weston meteor. And he was right. When Nathaniel Bowditch, America's leading astronomer, investigated
the fall he concluded that the object weighed 6,000,000 tons and was a previously unnoticed earth
satellite! Doubtless the President allowed himself a smile. (Ian Seymour)


P.S.: Michael Cottingham still has some Weston meteorites fragments and pieces for sale !!!


Best regards,

Bernd (who owns 1.11 grams and 0.34 grams of the Weston meteorite :-)
Received on Mon 21 Mar 2005 04:28:41 PM PST