[meteorite-list] NPA 03-30-1944 Stuart Perry Study Gives Data on World's Origin

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Jan 8 13:52:08 2005
Message-ID: <BAY4-F13A4751D558AE3B99648CEB3950_at_phx.gbl>

Paper: The Troy Record
City: Troy, New York
Date: Thursday Morning, March 30, 1944
Page: 12

Meteorite Study Gives Data on World's Origin

BY HOWARD W. BLAKESLEE
Associated Press Science Editor

     Detroit, Mich. - Some new records of the story of creation are being
found in a study of the structure of iron meteorites made by Stuart H.
Perry, editor and publisher of the Adrian, Mich., Telegram.
     The bits of iron are messages. Their information is contained in the
almost endless forms which their metallic structures show, every variation
due to something which one happened in unfathomable space.
     The findings are set down by Mr. Perry in a book, "The Metallography of
Meteoric Iron," which is the first systematic treatment of the composition
and microscopic structure of meteoric irons. Mr. Perry, for many years one
of the foremost collectors of these meteoric irons and an authority on their
structure, undertook the study three years ago at the request of the United
States National Museum and the book is published by the Smithsonian
Institution as the museum's bulletin.

Diamonds Sometimes Found.

     Iron meteorites have been falling upon the earth for millions of years.
The arrival times of those studied are mostly not known. Some are recent;
some very ancient.
     They are metallic iron, with varying amounts of nickel, and a good many
other chemical elements. Small diamonds are known in some iron meteorites.
They contain no elements not already known, though certain compounds are
found in them, mostly sulphides and phosphides, that are not found on the
earth.
     But the decipherable messages are in the structure itself, rather than
in composition. For example, the great majority of meteoric irons have a
structure formed by extremely slow cooling. Sometimes it shows a coarse
crystalline pattern, sometimes it is so fine as to be invisible only under
very high magnification. In some cases the microscopic structure shows that
the iron was reheated, causing an alteration of the original structure.

Reheating Discussed

     This reheating was too extensive to have occurred at the brief moment
when the meteorite, while hot, blazed down through the earth's atmosphere.
That is known to be a surface heating only, affecting no more than the
thickness of a cardboard.
     The reheating which Mr. Perry's analysis shows, occurred at some time
out in space. The flying bit of metal got into an area which was somehow a
furnace, possibly by being close to a star.
     Mr. Perry's analysis gives the structure of nearly 100 iron meteorites,
all different, all intricate, yet each one probably as definite a story of
origin as hieroglyphs, if metalloghaphers only could read them all.
     There are three kinds of meteorites. One is composed of stone and known
as aerolites, another a mixture of stone and iron and called siderolites.
The third is wholly metal, mostly iron, known as siderites. Mr. Perry's
study treats only the latter.
     The laboratory work, including hundreds of photographs at high
magnification, was done in the engineering laboratory of the University of
Michigan. Graduate students acted as assistants to Mr. Perry.

(end)

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com
http://www.imca.cc

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Received on Sat 08 Jan 2005 01:51:54 PM PST