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Paper: New York TimesCity: New York City, NY.Date: Monday, October 26, 1896
THE AEROLITE DID NOT FALL A Western Brakeman's Yarr That Deceived Many From the Chicago Record OSAWATOMIE, Kas., Oct. 22. - People in Ozawatomie date events from the falling of that aerolite. They say they Mayor vetoed the dog license two years before the aerolite fell or that Mrs. Dusenberry's twins must be eight months old because they were born about three years after the aerolite fell. And so it goes. The falling of the aerolite forms the basis of the Osawatomie calendar and is to Miami County what the French Revolution is to Europe. This will seem the more remarkable when it is known that no aerolite fell. During the Spring of 1893 - the Spring in which the aerolite didn't fall - the heavens vouchsafed that section of Kansas not even so much as a rain. The precipitation of a hailstone would have been greeted as a meteorological marvel. April 8, 1893, was the day on which George David discovered in himself talents which his duties as freight brakeman failed to exercise. That was the day J. W. Joplin, Superintendent Dunaway's negro porter, acquired that sobriquet of "professor." That was the day on which the aerolite didn't fall and didn't breah the left arm off the statue of John Brown. In brief, a newspaper story was to blame for it all. It emanated from the fertile brain of George Davis, brakeman on a Missouri Pacific freight train. He had been in the habit of sitting in the cupola of his caboose and studying the stars untill finally he acquired a superficial knowledge of astronomy. One day it occured to him to put his learning to a practical use. He wrote a story, of which this is an epitome: "OSAWATOMIE, Kan., April 9. - This little town is in a furor(?) of excitement over the falling of an aerolite. The heavenly visitant struck about 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon, shattering the member. Thence it passed through the dome and nave of the edltice(?) supporting the figure, traveling in a slightl southeasterly direction, and entered the ground. Workmen employed by Prof. J. W. Joplin of the State Mineralogical School and United States Assayer exhumed this strange tramp of the heavens after digging through nine feet of clay. The professpr hurriedly analyzed the meteor. He foumd ot tp possess a specific gravity four times greater than that of gold and to show lines on the spectrum that same as those seem on the spectrum of helium, the substance of which the sun is supposed to be composed." This remarkable production was printed in half the daily and weekly papers in Kansas and Missouri. Of course the Smithsonian Institution heard of it, and "Prof." Joplin was the recipient of flattering offers for the loan or the sale of his treasure. The Institution volunteered to put up a bond of $10,000 for its safe return. Scientists in the East and West wrote him ???dite letters concerning it. At first Joplin would sit down upon his inverted scrub bucket and try to read them, but he soon gave it up, as they were Greek to him, and besides, their number was increasing. Despairing finally of receiving replies many of Joplin's correspondents came to Osawatomie in person. They went away again, knowing no more about aerolites, but vastly wiser the science of human frailties(?). All this was milk and honey to Osawatomie, which derived most of her revenue that Spring from parties of visiting savants. The town acknowledges the debt she owes to Davis. As to Joplin, on each recurring 8th of April he is made the recipient of a new set of strings for his banjo or some similar testimonial to his service. In the meantime the marbel shaft erected in the memory of Capt. John Brown and other heroes of the battle of Osawatomie on Aug. 30, 1856 stands unscathed in the centre of the town common. At the entrance to the Inclosure a bold-lettered sigh, designed to dissuade any stray aerolite or small boy inclined to vandalism, reads that the "Major will give $3 for evidence necessary to convict any one of defacing monument |
