[meteorite-list] Norton County: Rocks from Space Picture of the Day - January 06, 2008

From: AL Mitterling <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:13:31 -0500
Message-ID: <47818ACB.90309_at_kconline.com>

Greetings all,

The LaPaz, Nininger conflict can be seen very easily here and why the
two didn't respect the other for such tactics "but"
On dozen of occasions Nininger had tried to involve both the Smithsonian
Institute, our government and many other institutes of the time to fund
or offer grants for his pursuits of meteorites so they could contribute
greatly to their collections and for science (Nininger's primary goal)
and freeing up Nininger to initiate his program. He was always told the
idea wouldn't work or he would find few meteorites or make applications
for grants (he did but there were few times he was fully funded and
usually for only a small project). As a result Nininger was forced to
offer for sale meteorites in order to fund his program of finding new
meteorites in the country, to pay for his meager lifestyle in which he
was often in debt as well provide for his family. Even so Nininger still
offered his collection up a number of times if someone would provide a
home and provided him a moderate salary, with condition that the
specimens would be studied and researched.

While LaPaz was frowning on Nininger's methods, he himself was hoarding
specimens of his own at his house. A number of specimens were found in
his basement after he passed away (a year before Nininger) a collection
that he had amassed making him a hypocrite by being a "collector".
Wonder if word of this ever got out to Nininger before he passed on. It
is my belief that some of the stuffy scientist of that day were just
envious of Nininger successful program of finding meteorites
(at least half of all that had been found in the USA from 1923 to the
1960's) and had to justify their lack of finds or a program by
suggesting that "money" was Nininger's incentive (which it wasn't). By
LaPaz's standards he would greatly frown on all of our efforts here to
find, collect and appreciate meteorites today! Seems some of this funny
attitude carries over today in our society.

The fact that LaPaz withheld specimens for scientific study from
Nininger (respected for his scientific abilities in meteorites by many
of his day) is also a crime against science of that time and shows the
true tone (colors) of those better than thou scholars of that time. All
my best!

--AL Mitterling

bernd.pauli at paulinet.de shared:

LaPaz evidently felt deeply that meteorities should be raised from the realm of
dealers, hobbyists, and amateur collectors and established as an academic discipline
to be pursued in universities, preferably by professors like himself who held Ph.D.
degrees in mathematics, physics, or astronomy. Not only did he deplore Nininger's
selling of meteorites at his museum, he was scandalized when Nininger brought
specimens to Society meetings and offered them for sale. In all probability, LaPaz
saw dealers as posing a genuine threat to research opportunities by inflating the
prices of meteorites. He may also have felt a whiff of the disdain toward "men-in-trade" that was traditional among gentlemanly scholars on both
sides of the Atlantic Ocean.


bernd.pauli at paulinet.de wrote:

>http://www.rocksfromspace.org/January_6_2008.html
>
>Hello Svend, Michael Johnson, and List,
>
>Wow! What a fragment! ... sayeth the happy owner of a modest 4.1-gram
>piece of the Norton County aubrite purchased from Walter Zeitschel in 1987.
>
>But, to round it out, here's something from the ol' days of "Meteoritics":
>
>(Meteoritics 28-3, 1993, pp. 271-273):
>
>MARVIN U.B.: The Norton County-Furnas County Meteorite Fall, February 18, 1948
>
>A spectacular fireball accompanied by violent explosions streaked northward over Kansas
>at 5:00 p.m. on February 18, 1948. One hour later, LaPaz was informed of the event by the
>Civil Air Patrol, who thought at first that a plane had crashed. LaPaz followed up sightings
>through Civil Air Patrol channels, concluded that a meteorite had fallen, and within two weeks,
>calculated a probable shower ellipse near the Kansas-Nebraska line.
>Meanwhile, the Niningers heard the news, went to the scene, and talked with many people, but
>a mid-winter blizzard forced them to leave before completing a search for meteorites. A farmer
>living in Norton County, Kansas, found the first stone late in the following spring, and after that
>many more were found in the same general area. In August, a farmer working his fields in Furnas
>County, Nebraska, a few miles north of the Kansas-Nebraska line, felt his tractor tilt steeply and
>found it perched at the edge of a hole 10 ft. deep with a huge stone at the bottom. The stone proved
>to be a magnificent flight-oriented cone weighing nearly one ton. This piece holds the record as the
>largest stony meteorite specimen in North America.
>Nininger asserted later that he had alerted the farmer to look for large stones on his property, and so
>the farmer had called him to report his discovery. Nininger traveled to the farm as soon as possible
>and climbed down into the hole to collect small chips that lay on the bottom and to prepare to collect
>the huge stone. But this stone lay within the strewnfield predicted by LaPaz who felt that his map
>together with his own lines of communication constituted a valid claim. Presently, Nininger heard
>voices and looked up to see LaPaz and Leonard peering over the edge of the hole. LaPaz' party of five
>soon was joined by a party of four from the Nebraska State and University Museums. LaPaz claimed
>prior rights to the stone, based on his calculations of the find site and the notice that had been sent
>to him. Nininger claimed finders' rights as well as what amounted to squatters' rights. As neither man
>would yield, permission was obtained from the absentee landlord to hold an auction in the farmhouse
>at night. Together, the Institute of Meteoritics and the University of Nebraska outbid Nininger, who
>left the scene. The stone was securely wrapped in burlap, coated with plaster of Paris, and lifted out
>of the hole by a crane. It then was loaded on a truck for a slow 550-mile drive to the Institute of
>Meteoritics in Albuquerque.
>The following September, when the Society met at the Institute of Meteoritics, Leonard (1948a) gave
>a detailed account of the Norton County shower including the discovery and collection of the Furnas
>stone. He pointed out that this was the first strewnfield to cross a state line and that therefore the
>meteorite must bear the compound name "Norton County, Kansas-Furnas County, Nebraska meteorite."
>Needless to say, few curators or catalogers were persuaded of such a necessity and so the meteorite
>quickly became known as "Norton County." Leonard did not mention Nininger in his report. Nininger
>presented his own account and protested Leonard's failure to mention his presence at the site.
>Letters in the Society Archives show that a month later, on October 25, 1948, Nininger wrote to LaPaz
>referring to the newly issued Catalogue of the Institute of Meteoritics and requesting specimens of
>Norton County which displayed a range of types and conditions of the fusion crust to use in his studies
>of meteorite surface features. In reply, LaPaz sent him a copy of the Institute's "Preliminary Application
>Form for Loan and/or Donation of Meteoritical Materials." It stated that one of the purposes of the
>Institute was to:
>
>.. make avaliable, without cost, to nuclear physicists, ballisticians, aerodynamisticians, and other
>investigators... specimens they might require for experimental purposes thus enabling scientists to
>escape from a state of affairs which has led two prominent mineralogists to complain that:
>
>'Meteorites are held at such an artificially high value by dealers and collectors as to make it difficult
>to secure any large quantity of any fall.'
>
>Thus, in order to obtain specimens, a petitioner would be asked to sign "No" to the following questions:
>
>1. Has an admission fee ever been charged, or is such a fee now charged, or is it contemplated to charge
>such a fee of the general public for admittance to any meteoritical exhibits housed in or in the possession
>of the institution of which you are a representative?
>
>2. Does the institution you represent or do you or your assistants now engage in the sale of jewelry made
>from meteorites (by some described as "otherworld jewelry") or of other objects d'art such as book ends,
>bases for fountain pen sets ... from meteoritical materials... or is the sale of such objects contemplated
>in the future?
>
>We need not ask whether or not Nininger received his requested specimens of Norton County from the
>Institute of Meteoritics.
>
>LaPaz evidently felt deeply that meteorities should be raised from the realm of dealers, hobbyists, and
>amateur collectors and established as an academic discipline to be pursued in universities, preferably
>by professors like himself who held Ph.D. degrees in mathematics, physics, or astronomy. Not only did
>he deplore Nininger's selling of meteorites at his museum, he was scandalized when Nininger brought
>specimens to Society meetings and offered them for sale. In all probability, LaPaz saw dealers as posing
>a genuine threat to research opportunities by inflating the prices of meteorites. He may also have felt a
>whiff of the disdain toward "men-in-trade" that was traditional among gentlemanly scholars on both
>sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
>
>
>To: SPACEROCKSINC at aol.com
> meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
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Received on Sun 06 Jan 2008 09:13:31 PM PST