[meteorite-list] Thomas Jefferson & Weston (Part 1)

From: bernd.pauli at paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: 01 Sep 2009 15:26:36 UT
Message-ID: <DIIE.0000009400003FA7_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)
Received on Tue 01 Sep 2009 11:26:36 AM PDT