Greetings all,
The LaPaz, Nininger conflict can be seen very easily here and why the
two didn't respect the other for such tactics "but"
On dozen of occasions Nininger had tried to involve both the Smithsonian
Institute, our government and many other institutes of the time to fund
or offer grants for his pursuits of meteorites so they could contribute
greatly to their collections and for science (Nininger's primary goal)
and freeing up Nininger to initiate his program. He was always told the
idea wouldn't work or he would find few meteorites or make applications
for grants (he did but there were few times he was fully funded and
usually for only a small project). As a result Nininger was forced to
offer for sale meteorites in order to fund his program of finding new
meteorites in the country, to pay for his meager lifestyle in which he
was often in debt as well provide for his family. Even so Nininger still
offered his collection up a number of times if someone would provide a
home and provided him a moderate salary, with condition that the
specimens would be studied and researched.
While LaPaz was frowning on Nininger's methods, he himself was hoarding
specimens of his own at his house. A number of specimens were found in
his basement after he passed away (a year before Nininger) a collection
that he had amassed making him a hypocrite by being a "collector".
Wonder if word of this ever got out to Nininger before he passed on. It
is my belief that some of the stuffy scientist of that day were just
envious of Nininger successful program of finding meteorites
(at least half of all that had been found in the USA from 1923 to the
1960's) and had to justify their lack of finds or a program by
suggesting that "money" was Nininger's incentive (which it wasn't). By
LaPaz's standards he would greatly frown on all of our efforts here to
find, collect and appreciate meteorites today! Seems some of this funny
attitude carries over today in our society.
The fact that LaPaz withheld specimens for scientific study from
Nininger (respected for his scientific abilities in meteorites by many
of his day) is also a crime against science of that time and shows the
true tone (colors) of those better than thou scholars of that time. All
my best!
--AL Mitterling
[EMAIL PROTECTED] shared:
LaPaz evidently felt deeply that meteorities should be raised from the realm of
dealers, hobbyists, and amateur collectors and established as an academic discipline
to be pursued in universities, preferably by professors like himself who held Ph.D.
degrees in mathematics, physics, or astronomy. Not only did he deplore Nininger's
selling of meteorites at his museum, he was scandalized when Nininger brought
specimens to Society meetings and offered them for sale. In all probability, LaPaz
saw dealers as posing a genuine threat to research opportunities by inflating the
prices of meteorites. He may also have felt a whiff of the disdain toward "men-in-trade" that was traditional among gentlemanly scholars on both
sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
http://www.rocksfromspace.org/January_6_2008.html
Hello Svend, Michael Johnson, and List,
Wow! What a fragment! ... sayeth the happy owner of a modest 4.1-gram
piece of the Norton County aubrite purchased from Walter Zeitschel in 1987.
But, to round it out, here's something from the ol' days of "Meteoritics":
(Meteoritics 28-3, 1993, pp. 271-273):
MARVIN U.B.: The Norton County-Furnas County Meteorite Fall, February 18, 1948
A spectacular fireball accompanied by violent explosions streaked northward
over Kansas
at 5:00 p.m. on February 18, 1948. One hour later, LaPaz was informed of the
event by the
Civil Air Patrol, who thought at first that a plane had crashed. LaPaz followed
up sightings
through Civil Air Patrol channels, concluded that a meteorite had fallen, and
within two weeks,
calculated a probable shower ellipse near the Kansas-Nebraska line.
Meanwhile, the Niningers heard the news, went to the scene, and talked with
many people, but
a mid-winter blizzard forced them to leave before completing a search for
meteorites. A farmer
living in Norton County, Kansas, found the first stone late in the following
spring, and after that
many more were found in the same general area. In August, a farmer working his
fields in Furnas
County, Nebraska, a few miles north of the Kansas-Nebraska line, felt his
tractor tilt steeply and
found it perched at the edge of a hole 10 ft. deep with a huge stone at the
bottom. The stone proved
to be a magnificent flight-oriented cone weighing nearly one ton. This piece
holds the record as the
largest stony meteorite specimen in North America.
Nininger asserted later that he had alerted the farmer to look for large stones
on his property, and so
the farmer had called him to report his discovery. Nininger traveled to the
farm as soon as possible
and climbed down into the hole to collect small chips that lay on the bottom
and to prepare to collect
the huge stone. But this stone lay within the strewnfield predicted by LaPaz
who felt that his map
together with his own lines of communication constituted a valid claim.
Presently, Nininger heard
voices and looked up to see LaPaz and Leonard peering over the edge of the
hole. LaPaz' party of five
soon was joined by a party of four from the Nebraska State and University
Museums. LaPaz claimed
prior rights to the stone, based on his calculations of the find site and the
notice that had been sent
to him. Nininger claimed finders' rights as well as what amounted to squatters'
rights. As neither man
would yield, permission was obtained from the absentee landlord to hold an
auction in the farmhouse
at night. Together, the Institute of Meteoritics and the University of Nebraska
outbid Nininger, who
left the scene. The stone was securely wrapped in burlap, coated with plaster
of Paris, and lifted out
of the hole by a crane. It then was loaded on a truck for a slow 550-mile drive
to the Institute of
Meteoritics in Albuquerque.
The following September, when the Society met at the Institute of Meteoritics,
Leonard (1948a) gave
a detailed account of the Norton County shower including the discovery and
collection of the Furnas
stone. He pointed out that this was the first strewnfield to cross a state line
and that therefore the
meteorite must bear the compound name "Norton County, Kansas-Furnas County, Nebraska
meteorite."
Needless to say, few curators or catalogers were persuaded of such a necessity
and so the meteorite
quickly became known as "Norton County." Leonard did not mention Nininger in
his report. Nininger
presented his own account and protested Leonard's failure to mention his
presence at the site.
Letters in the Society Archives show that a month later, on October 25, 1948,
Nininger wrote to LaPaz
referring to the newly issued Catalogue of the Institute of Meteoritics and
requesting specimens of
Norton County which displayed a range of types and conditions of the fusion
crust to use in his studies
of meteorite surface features. In reply, LaPaz sent him a copy of the Institute's
"Preliminary Application
Form for Loan and/or Donation of Meteoritical Materials." It stated that one of
the purposes of the
Institute was to:
.. make avaliable, without cost, to nuclear physicists, ballisticians,
aerodynamisticians, and other
investigators... specimens they might require for experimental purposes thus
enabling scientists to
escape from a state of affairs which has led two prominent mineralogists to
complain that:
'Meteorites are held at such an artificially high value by dealers and
collectors as to make it difficult
to secure any large quantity of any fall.'
Thus, in order to obtain specimens, a petitioner would be asked to sign "No" to
the following questions:
1. Has an admission fee ever been charged, or is such a fee now charged, or is
it contemplated to charge
such a fee of the general public for admittance to any meteoritical exhibits
housed in or in the possession
of the institution of which you are a representative?
2. Does the institution you represent or do you or your assistants now engage
in the sale of jewelry made
from meteorites (by some described as "otherworld jewelry") or of other objects
d'art such as book ends,
bases for fountain pen sets ... from meteoritical materials... or is the sale
of such objects contemplated
in the future?
We need not ask whether or not Nininger received his requested specimens of
Norton County from the
Institute of Meteoritics.
LaPaz evidently felt deeply that meteorities should be raised from the realm of
dealers, hobbyists, and
amateur collectors and established as an academic discipline to be pursued in
universities, preferably
by professors like himself who held Ph.D. degrees in mathematics, physics, or
astronomy. Not only did
he deplore Nininger's selling of meteorites at his museum, he was scandalized
when Nininger brought
specimens to Society meetings and offered them for sale. In all probability,
LaPaz saw dealers as posing
a genuine threat to research opportunities by inflating the prices of
meteorites. He may also have felt a
whiff of the disdain toward "men-in-trade" that was traditional among
gentlemanly scholars on both
sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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