Russian Meteorites Sent To America

Northern Advocate, 27 May 1941, Page 9

Russian Meteorites Sent To America

For study purposes, the Smithsonian Institute has lately received from the Academy of Science at Moscow bits of rock which were , allowed to leave Soviet Russia only by a Special Act of the Central Soviet. The natural science editor of the “Christian Science Monitor” says they are part of two meteorites or shooting stars, both of which were seen to hit the earth.

The major portions are retained in the huge collection of these celestial visitors now being built up in Moscow. One of the fragments a type which Mr. E. P. Henderson, Smithsonian mineralogist, was especially eager to subject to chemical analysis. The Soviet Academy has not previously exchanged meteorites, but the legislative body consented after the Soviet Academy recommended it. One of the two fell near the city of Boguslavka, in Siberia, in 1916, and the other, a stony meteorite, fell at Lhotnevyi, in the Ukraine, in 1930. “We are still eager to find,” said Mr. Henderson, “whatever remains of the largest meteorite ever known to strike the earth, the great Tunguska fall of June 30, 1908, which hit the earth in a swampy, sparsely inhabited region of Northern Siberia between the Yenissie and Lena Rivers. The force of the impact caused vibrations on seismographs around the earth. While the general location of the impact is well known, the country is. difficult to explore.”