Title: Weekly Gazette Stockman City: Reno, Nevada Date: Thursday, October 14, 1897 Page: 4
LIENT. PEARY is bringing back from the northwest coast of Greenland a meteorite that for size reduces all other objects of the kind to insignificance. The Cape York meteorite, as it is called, is 12 feet long and 8 feet wide, and weighs about 100 tons, or about thirty three times more than the largest in the United States. Meteorites are of three classes, those composed wholly of iron, these in which iron and earthy matters are mixed and those entirely of stone, the last being by far the most common. In the Cape York meteorite iron is the chief ingredient, with some nickel and traces of copper and tin. Its texture resembles the tough nickelferous iron used for armor in warships, and is believed to be throughout a perfect specimen of crystalline structure. There are legends of larger meteorites but they have never been found. The depression in Canyon Diablo, Arizona, nearly a mile in diameter and 100 feet deep, is attributed to an enormous meteor, but the largest fragment picked up in the vicinity weighs but half a ton. When the great Greenland specimen reaches its future resting place in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, it will be a steady attraction for visitors. It is asserted that 10,000,000 meteors reach the atmosphere of the earth every day, coming from inter stellar space, where the temperature is 400 degrees below zero. On striking the outer air of the planet the friction causes a heat of 3,000,000 degrees, and the missile, flying 2500 miles a minute, is instantly converted into gas. But occasionly the mass of the meteor is so great that some of it reaches the earth, becoming visible at a distance of 100 miles. No substance unknown on earth has been found in meteorites. Iron is their predominant metal. They have shown imbedded diamonds, but no gold. The fragments are occasionally scattered over an area of miles, a fact proved by their fitting into each other. Greenland's meteorites were first heard of through the natives, who tipped their weapons with the tough iron sent down from the skies. A swarm of meteorites is supposed to travel around the sun as small bodies, and their journey is uninterrupted until they get too near a larger body, which usually results in their passing into the gaseous state. Many astronomers hold that meteors are fragments of comets, and that a comet is but a large meteor, with a tail of reflected light. One of the most remarkable meteors of modern times burst over the city of Madrid, February 10, 1896. The glare was blinding, though the sun was high, and the noise was deafening. Several buildings fell, and the city was violently shaken. The phenomenon was visible throughout more than half of Spain, and meteoric fragments were picked up in several places. Eminent geologist contend that the structure of the earth is similiar in materials to that of meteorites, and that the central mass is iron and heavy metals, in a molten condition at present. Please visit, www.MeteoriteArticles.com, a free on-line archive of meteor and meteorite articles. |
