[meteorite-list] 1957 08-09 Nininger to Whipple letter, Canyon Diablo Speriods

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu May 19 03:08:46 2005
Message-ID: <BAY104-F3405970F3C784F123401FFB3080_at_phx.gbl>

August 9, 1957

Dr. Fred Whipple
Director
Astrophysical Observatory
60 Garden Street
Cambridge 38, Mass.

Dear Dr. Whipple:

     Since our last report we have moved our museum to Sedona, Arizona, and
are much better housed then before and are equipped with ten new exhibition
cases of original design in addition to the exhibit facilities which we had
in the old building on U.S. Highway 66, so that now we are better able to
carry on our instructional program.
     The Curators of Meteorites in both the U.S. National Museum and the
British Museum of Natural History have visited us and have praised our
project as easily the most effective educational program in meteoritics
carreid on anywhere. This is very encouraging to us.
     Our most important advance since the last report has been the further
reseaches and the publishing of my book - ARIZONA'S METEORITE CRATER - with
which, of course, you are familiar.
     Recently I have been making further classification of the several types
of materail identified in association wtih the Arizona crater. There has
been considerable confusion of terms by various writers who have referred to
my metallic spheroids as "small pellicles", "spherules", "metallic
spherules", "Canyon Diablo spherules", and "miniscule bits and pieces" which
appeared in THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL, 62, No. 3, 1957, May, P. 96. The name
metallic spheroids was very carefully chosen with the help of Mr. Wilfred
Funk to whom all of the description features were submitted. They are not
spherical hense not spherules. They are definitely metallic. They stongly
tend toward roundness. Their chemical composition as well as shape sets
them apart from the spherules of Spencer and from all the particles
described by Barringer or Tilghman.
     Likewise various writers have failed to note that the metallic
particles in our impactite slag are of two kinds and for the most part are
different from the spherules described by Spencer from Wabar and Henbury.
However, I have found that not all the particles in Wabar silica-glass are
spherical as described by Spencer.
     I am sending a list of the meteoritic and impacite materials that I, or
others, have classified from the Arizona crater.
     Our Museum has also recovered several new finds since the publication
of THE NININGER COLLECTION OF METEORITES (1950). The list is enclosed.

Respectfully submitted,
H. H. Nininger

HHN: AN


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Received on Thu 19 May 2005 03:08:44 AM PDT