Dear Mark Bostick and list. Enjoyed the reprint you posted re: the large
meteorite of June 11, 1901 as reported in the Denver paper June 21. I too checked
and could find no mention of a recovery, however I was able to locate Los
Molinas and am very familiar with the town of Altar, Sonora, Mexico. El Progresso,
the Mexican paper which first reported the meteor is still operating -
perhaps it would be worth delving through their files to see if sufficient eye
witnesses reported it to allow triangulation.
Reading the report triggered my aging memory, and looking through my copy of
NEW TRAILS IN MEXICO, by Carl Lumholtz, 1912, I found a report of another
meteor(ite) very near to that area, occurring November 5, 1910. Lumholtz was a
prolific explorer, ethnographer, geologist, and all around adventurer, with a
keen eye for detail and desire to chronicle his discoveries. I'll quote below in
part his report.
At Rancho de Macias, on November 5, in the afternoon, a splendid meteor
was observed. The engineers and the geologist had promised to dine with me that
evening in return for hospitality that I had enjoyed at their hands. It was
after dusk, but not quite night yet, and I was unpacking some Norwegian
delicacies which were to serve as my pi�ce de r�sistance, when suddenly loud shouts
of admiration were heard, "Mira, mira! no mas!" As I instinctively turned my
eyes over our wagon toward the North I beheld a large and resplendent orb, with
a long tail, passing slowly and majestically over the heavens, roughly
speaking from west to east.
The color was bluish white at the start, and the size appeared as
one-sixth the size of the full moon; the unusually long tail appeared as if it might
be six inches long, if seen near by. To our eyes the meteor moved so slowly
that it might have been photographed. It grew smaller and smaller, both body and
tail, the latter disappearing first, when the globe itself, now yellowish red
burst into two pieces, the smaller one going upward. Perhaps a quarter of the
horizon was passed. - - - - - - Later I learned that the same phenomenon had
been observed at Altar. (Yes, this is the same Altar as mentioned from the
1901 fall) At Sonoita it appeared to Sr. Isaurao Quiroz as if "it disappeared
twenty meters above the horizon, first sending one piece to the north-west and
another to the south-east, the latter dissolving into thirty or forty red and
blue sparks, and as resplendent as the sun." Sr. Bonillas, the geologist, some
time before, had seen one of the same size at three o'clock in the afternoon
at Nogales.
End of quote. I've poured over old and new maps and aerial surveys of the
area and have pinpointed every site described. A busy place around that part of
Mexico, I guess. The Carbo (front cover A to Z) was not terribly far south of
there, and the Huizopa was recovered east of that area near the
Sonora/Chihuahua border. And Arizpe was not far north of Huizopa. And, And. Must be a
huge
underground mass of magnetite drawing so many meteors in that part of Mexico.
Just kidding. Anyone want to do more research?
Larry Johnson
IMCA #6116
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