Identifier: scienceguide7692amer (find matches)
Title: Guide leaflet
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: American Museum of Natural History Natural history
Publisher: New York : The Museum
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: IMLS / LSTA / METRO

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l weightof fall unknown; six tonspreserved in collections lies in the center of the meteorite field.This crater is quite large being 4150 feetin diameter and 570 feet deep. It is sur-rounded by a parapet 150 feet in heightcomposed of rock debris thrown out ofthe crater. The crater has been studiedat various times from different stand-points and the present general consensusof opinion is that it was formed by theimpact of a great meteor or comet withthe earth some 50,000 years ago, andthat immediately following the impactthere was a tremendous explosion whichnot only scattered the meteorites and rockdebris over the surrounding plain, butgouged out the crater pit and greatly dis-turbed the normal disposition of the thicklimestone and sandstone beds in the mar-gins of the crater. Borings have beenmade within and about the margins of thecrater in an endeavor to locate a possiblelarger meteoric mass, but so far they haveyielded only inconclusive results. Other meteor craters and associated
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COMETS, MKTEOUS, AM) METEOHITES 13 meteoric material have reccMitly beenfound at Henbury, Australia and Odessa,Texas. No meteorite fragments, how-ever, have been found near the meteorcraters of Tung;uska, Siberia, and Kaali,Esthonia. So seldom are meteorites seen to fallthat it is not strange that such phenomenashould attract widespread attention when-ever and wherever they occur. Neitheris it strange that skepticism should arisein the minds of non-witnesses regardingthe existence of objects which are reportedto have fallen from the heavens. Early records show that meteoricshowers were regarded as supernatural.According to the late G. P. Merrill of theSmithsonian Institution, such phenomenaare referred to in Revelations vi, 13; viii,10; and xii, 3, 4. E. F. F. Chladin in 1819stated that one of the oldest meteoricfalls on record is that of Crete, 1478 b.c.Pliny in his second book, Naturals His-toire, mentions that in 468 b.c. a Greek

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