Dave,
I don't think anyone can be one of those
"Indiana Jones" types unless they have one
of those hats, and, oh yeah, a bullwhip...
Sterling
------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "dfreeman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Michael Farmer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 9:06 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] article on search for a missing meteorite
Dear Mike, List;
Let's all be sure that we don't let any of those "indiana jones" types try
and talk us our of our meteorites, after all, they belong to us!!!!!
Dave F.
Michael Farmer wrote:
This guy seems to have a 100 different scams, meteorite investments for
people to give him money to hunt meteorites.
Mike Farmer
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary K. Foote" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] article on search for a missing meteorite
I got a copy of this in my private email this morning. Thought it odd and
deleted it.
Then this report that you got one too, and now one directly to the list.
Someone is
working hard to raise interest in a 'maybeorite' in hopes of what I can't
imagine.
Unless they already have found it and are trying to raise the legend
factor for more $$$.
Gary
http://www.meteorite-dealers.com
On 19 Jan 2006 at 20:44, Darren Garrison wrote:
Someone anonymous e-mailed me this link tonight through the "e-mail this
story" link at
the bottom. I have no idea who it was, or if it has been passed along to
other list
members, but here it is:
http://www.mainstreetnewspapers.com/articles/2006/01/19/fincastle/news/news05.txt
Seen an unusual black rock lying on a stone wall lately?
By ANITA J. FIREBAUGH
Somewhere in Botetourt or Craig County there may be a really big
meteorite lying on a rock
wall-at least that's where it was left according to the last
documentation about its
location 125 years ago.
Found in Botetourt County in 1850, this hunk of metal/rock from space is
missing, and
specimens of the meteorite are difficult to locate.
Botetourt County is a large area to cover, and in 1850 it was even
bigger, because at the
time it also encompassed what is now Craig County. So the meteorite
could be anywhere in
this area of Southwest Virginia.
Wherever it is, at least one meteorite hunter wants to find it.
Rick Yarrow of Florida contacted The Fincastle Herald recently to ask if
anyone knew the
meteorite's location. He said he was an amateur meteorite hunter and
wanted to find what
he called the Botetourt County meteorite.
The meteorite is listed in a book, Catalogue of Meteorites, and noted in
other official
lists of named and recorded meteorite finds. Very small specimens are
supposed to be at
Arizona State University, the United States Natural Museum (USNM or the
Smithsonian), and
in Calcutta and Vienna, but the Botetourt meteorite itself apparently
was very large.
The USNM could not locate its specimen, and Linda Welxenbach, USNM
collection manager for
the division of meteorites, was unsure if it ever was in the collection.
â?oWe have pictures of the crystal structure of the meteorite but on the
back it says the
specimen is in Vienna,â?� she said.
Her documentation on the meteorite shows the fragments were once part of
a mineral
collection bequeathed to the Smithsonian by C. U. Shepard, a 19th
century professor at
Amherst College in Massachusetts and noted mineral collector.
In his papers, Shepard lists the Botetourt County, Virginia meteorite.
In 1866, he wrote:
â?oThis iron was discovered more than fifteen years ago in a mass so
ponderous that the
finder, having attempted to transport it on horseback a number of miles
to his house, was
obliged to abandon the undertaking. He left it upon a stone wall by the
road-side, after
having (with the assistance of a negro who happened at the time to be
passing with a
hammer) detached two or three small angular fragments.â?�
Shepard wrote that the finder gave the fragments to N. S. Manross,
another Amherst College
professor, who took them to Gottingen, Germany, for analysis. The
fragments were
determined to have a very unusual presence of nickel. Manross eventually
gave one of the
fragments and the information about its acquisition to Shepard. Shepard
acquired all of
the fragments after Manross died.
Shepard described the fragments as â?owhiter than most irons Å fine
granular like
cast-steel.â?�
Welxenbach said upon further study it appears the Botetourt County
meteorite is similar to
a 20-pound meteorite called Babb's Mill, found in 1842 in Greene County,
Tenn. and
theorized the rocks may be from the same meteor or could even be the
same meteorite.
It is not unusual for meteorites to be found from the same fall, as such
an event is
called, said John Goss, Botetourt County's master astronomer. Goss said
a large meteor
falling from the sky can break apart. A matter of seconds can separate
the rock masses
over hundreds of miles. â?oThey do spread out over the ground and could
go over many
miles,â?� Goss said.
Meteorite study was well under way in 1850, so a knowledgeable person
could have realized
the rock was significant and sought out a scientist, Goss said. Mineral
testing was
available back then.
Yarrow, the meteor hunter, said the rock, if the size is as significant
as suggested by
the notations of requiring a horse to move it, could bring a pretty
penny if the owner is
inclined to sell it.
Goss said the documentation implies the meteorite weighed several
hundred pounds. He said
one indication of a meteorite is an â?oout of place rock. If you're in
an area with
primarily sandy soil and then there's a 400-pound iron rock, how did it
get there? It must
have fallen from the sky,â?� Goss said.
Yarrow said the meteorite's iron content makes it a unique meteorite. He
believes the
meteorite would be black and pitted.
â?oIt's going to be such an unusual stone, it'll stick out like a sore
thumb,â?� Yarrow
said.
Online, meteorite fragments range in price from less than $100 to
$30,000 for a sliver,
depending on the meteorite and its characteristics.
Yarrow said he collects meteorites for fun, but others earn their living
hunting for such
stones. Meteorite hunters have a varied reputation, depending on point
of view. Goss
called them â?oIndiana Jonesâ?� types who seek meteorites instead of
treasure.
Welxenbach said meteor hunters can unwittingly impede the scientific
process and noted
that meteorite finds should be named and classified by an international
committee that
makes meteoric material available for research.
Museums and scientists often don't have the cash needed to buy a
meteorite once a
meteorite hunter has acquired it, she said. â?oThey can go out and
snatch this stuff up
and then the price skyrockets,â?� she added.
The Botetourt County meteorite has apparently been named and classified
but the majority
of the meteorite has been lost. The Herald unearthed a report of a
meteorite in private
hands in the Nace area of Botetourt, but it allegedly fell during the
20th century. The
owner declined comment.
Goss and Welxenbach said meteorites on your property belong to you.
â?oDon't let anybody
talk you out of it,â?� Welxenbach said.
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