FALL OF METEORITE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21716, 3 February 1934, Page 12

FALL OF METEORITE

OBSERVERS DECEIVED SCIENTIST FINDS ROCK A piece of the meteorite which fell recently in South Australia, an exhibit certain to bo of interest to local scientists and geologists, has been brought from Adelaide by Dr. C. Coleridge Farr, professor of physics at Canterbury College. The deceptive nature of the meteorite's course was described by the professor in an interview with the Press. The whirling mass of rock was seen along a course of several hundred miles by many independent observers, most of whom were situated south-east of Adelaide. Every man and every woman said they were absolutely sure that it had crashed into the earth near by, and many of them ran to escape what they thought to be certain destruction. If all of them had been right a large number of meteorites must have fallen simultaneously along the actual course of the phenomenon. But Mr. G. F. Dodwell, the South Australian Government astronomer, knew too much about such things to be led astray by reports from excited observers, most of whom thojight that they had a meteorite buried in one of their paddocks. After thorough investigations he came to the conclusion that the meteorite had fallen at a point on the east side of the river Murray. He went to the locality and found the meteorite. The spot is ajxiut 60 miles south-east of Adelaide, and the fall of the meteorite had been vividly visible for hundreds of miles from the Murray. It had first been seen far to the north. The rock had been split into sex-eral largo pieces by the fall, and had been driven into the earth by its tremendous impetus. Dr. Farr obtained a piece from Mr. Dodwell. He considered that Mr. Dodwell had been extremely clever to find the mass of rock in the face of so much conflicting evidence. Dr. Farr did not know the origin of tho meteorite. That was rather too much to expect, ho said. But one thing he did know was that it had been "scooting" about space for a long, long time.