I have just gotten off the telephone with Mr. Killingbeck from the Cadillac Evening News and he was a delight to speak with.
He will be contacting me in a couple of weeks for an interview for another/follow up story on meteorites and the connection, or in this case, the lack of it, with the historic fires. I noted that the logging industry had probably more to do with the fires than anything from the cosmos. The landscape is dotted with 3 foot diameter tree stumps that are charred. They make great stools to sit on while deer hunting in November.
The local library there has the New Bob Haag color meteorite book that I presented them two years ago, and they also have a copy of the ROCKS FROM SPACE book as well. I mentioned that the reporter would enjoy researching both books in preparation for the follow up story.
Where's our other Michigan meteorite associates? George, Mark, Maria, here's your chance....
Very best,
Dave Freeman
Mark Langenfeld wrote:
Anyone who has researched the history of these fires knows how spurious this theory likely is (at least as to the north woods blazes). There were small slash fires burning throughout the north woods most of that summer and early fall. The protracted drought and an intense weather system with associated high winds combined to drive and coalesce the individual fires into the conflagrations that swept Peshtigo and elsewhere.
More to the point for this group: is there any credible report on record anywhere of a meteorite arrival igniting a significant fire (other than from historic asteroid-scale impacts)? In contrast, a notable (witnessed) Wisconsin fall -- at Colby -- arrived on the warm and humid evening of July 4, 1917. The meteorite was so cold when recovered that frost formed on it.
Mark
http://www.cadillacnews.com/articles/2004/08/23/news/news02.txt
Could a meteorite or comet cause all the fires of 1871? By Dale Killingbeck Cadillac News (Michigan) August 23, 2004
CADILLAC - The skies around Sherman and the village of Clam Lake undoubtedly turned from blue to black.
In Chicago, flames were racing through the city and in Peshtigo, Wis., people were running for their lives. Flames from the woods near Manistee invaded the town on a quiet Sunday - and people fought for their homes.
Within three days of the fires, thousands were homeless, hundreds from Chicago, Wisconsin and Michigan dead, and many pioneers faced the winter without a home or crops to eat.
In the month of the Perseid Meteor shower, it is interesting to ponder - could a disintegrated comet be the cause of the fires?
An Upper Peninsula systems design engineer thinks so, as does a former physicist with McDonnell Douglas Corp.
______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
