[meteorite-list] Nininger Moment #15

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:37 2004
Message-ID: <3EBBEF22.AE1E5B7C_at_kconline.com>

Nininger Moment #15
Part One

Subject: A Nininger Moment #15
Date: Friday April 09. 2003
From: almitt <almitt_at_kconline.com>

Not all knowledge comes from books

In 1915 a Texan sent a sample in to the Smithsonian Institution which
turn out to be a new find. Up until that time only 22 meteorites had
been found in the whole United States that had not been see to fall.
The man was paid and asked to try to search the area for more stones.
In the course of two years of hunting about a dozen stones were coll-
ected and sent into the Smithsonian with an average of five pounds.
It was then concluded the collecting job was finished and a scientific
paper was written up on the fall and the books were closed on it.

In 1928 Nininger asked Dr. Merrill about this find in Plainview,
Texas which he had described about a decade ago. Dignified and
scholarly, he gave Nininger the facts, talking to Nininger as a
country school teacher might talk to a first grader. Nininger then
asked if any further searches of the area were going to be conducted
and he was told the job was finished and he judged it good and that
any further searches would most likely not yield further material.
Dr. Nininger then asked if he would care if he tried his hand at
searching the area and he was offer no encouragement but told to
help himself. Before going to the area, Nininger contacted some people
in the area including the county surveyor who assured him he had been
over ever square foot of the area and hadn't come across any meteor-
ites in some 40 years. Many of Nininger's trips were done when two
or more areas could be check out at once rather than making expensive
trips one at a time. Such was the case for the Plainview area.

In December of 1933 Nininger and his brother John were returning
from a search in Mexico for a possible 50 ton meteorite which turned
out to be false as well as a dozen or other stories that turned out poorly.
They neared the Plainview, Texas town near sundown. He told his
brother that they would stay there that night but before retiring he would
go out into the country side and find a meteorite. His brother looked at
Harvey with real alarm after their thankless journey into Mexico with
terrible food and water, insects, snakes and scorpions that had made
their adventure into more of a nightmare. Plus they were returning
broke.

After acquiring a hotel, Nininger and his brother drove into the
country side and began knocking on farmers doors many times just
as the men were returning from the field that day. After talking to
some of the people at a couple of farm houses with no results but
a possibility that some rocks had been seen like that, they stopped
at a fourth farm house. The family were eating their evening meal
by lamp light. This group treated Nininger coolly and with puzzlement.
When Nininger felt the impatience was giving way to hostility he manage
to tell them he would pay for such a stone at a dollar a pound. With
the offer of money, the father jumped to his feet took the lantern
and went out into the court yard with his eight year old daughter.
They returned in a couple of minutes with an eight pound meteorite
asking Nininger if this is what he was after. Nininger purchased the
meteorite and asked if there might be more which the man assured him
there were but would have to be looked for in the morning. Nininger
then headed back to the car with the meteorite laying it in his
brothers lap and stated they should return to their motel room.



Source: Find A Falling Star by H.H. Nininger

The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey
Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of the
items written in the moments might be old out dated material and the
reader is advised to keep this in mind.


--AL Mitterling
Received on Fri 09 May 2003 02:10:43 PM PDT