[meteorite-list] New Mexico U. Gets Norton Meteorite - Part 2 of 2

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:41 2004
Message-ID: <DIIE.0000005400000A80_at_paulinet.de>

> New Mexico Gets Huge Aerolite Transferred Safely From Nebraska Farm

.. or how to bridge the gap between two quarrelers :-)
No, for heaven's sake, I won't mention any names!

Best regards,

Bernd


Please, enjoy U.B. Marvin's article on the Nininger and LaPaz feud:

(Meteoritics 28-3, 1993, pp. 271-273):

The following September, when the Society met at the Institute of Meteoritics, Leonard (1948a) gave a detailed account of the Norton County shower including the discovery and collection of the Furnas stone. He pointed out that this was the first strewnfield to cross a state line and that therefore the meteorite must bear the compound name "Norton County, Kansas-Furnas County, Nebraska meteorite." Needless to say, few curators or catalogers were persuaded of such a necessity and so the meteorite quickly became known as "Norton County." Leonard did not mention Nininger in his report. Nininger presented his own account and protested Leonard's failure to mention his presence at the site.
Letters in the Society Archives show that a month later, on October 25, 1948, Nininger wrote to LaPaz referring to the newly issued Catalogue of the Institute of Meteoritics and requesting specimens of Norton County which displayed a range of types and conditions of the fusion crust to use in his studies of meteorite surface features. In reply, LaPaz sent him a copy of the Institute's "Preliminary Application Form for Loan and/or Donation of Meteoritical Materials." It stated that one of the purposes of the Institute was to:

.. make avaliable, without cost, to nuclear physicists, ballisticians, aerodynamisticians, and other investigators... specimens they might require for experimental purposes thus enabling scientists to escape from a state of affairs which has led two prominent mineralogists to complain that:
'Meteorites are held at such an artificially high value by dealers and collectors as to make it difficult to secure any large quantity of any fall.'

Thus, in order to obtain specimens, a petitioner would be asked to sign "No" to the following questions:

1. Has an admission fee ever been charged, or is such a fee now charged, or is it contemplated to charge such a fee of the general public for admittance to any meteoritical exhibits housed in or in the possession of the institution of which you are a representative?

2. Does the institution you represent or do you or your assistants now engage in the sale of jewelry made from meteorites (by some described as "otherworld jewelry) or of other objects d'art such as book ends, bases for fountain pen sets ... from meteoritical materials... or is the sale of such objects contemplated in the future?

We need not ask whether or not Nininger received his requested specimens of Norton County from the Institute of Meteoritics.
LaPaz evidently felt deeply that meteorities should be raised from the realm of dealers, hobbyists, and amateur collectors and established as an academic discipline to be pursued in universities, preferably by professors like himself who held Ph.D. degrees in mathematics, physics, or astronomy. Not only did he deplore Nininger's selling of meteorites at his museum, he was scandalized when Nininger brought specimens to Society meetings and offered them for sale. In all probability, LaPaz saw dealers as posing a genuine threat to research opportunities by inflating the prices of meteorites. He may also have felt a whiff of the disdain toward "men-in-trade" that was traditional among gentlemanly scholars on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.


To: thebigcollector_at_msn.com
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Received on Sun 18 May 2003 03:48:01 PM PDT