| meteorite specimens prior to 1790 hard to find?

meteorite specimens prior to 1790 hard to find?

Crazy Eagle asked:


The French Academy of Science proclaimed at in 1772 that meteorites were just superstitious nonsense, because rocks could not fall from the sky. But, did museums really throw out their specimens? Is it hard to find meteorite specimens in Europe that date prior to 1790? Anyone know this? Thanks, I am writing a book on the history of science.

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Comments

5 Responses to “meteorite specimens prior to 1790 hard to find?”

  1. matahari on April 11th, 2009 5:40 am

    Actually they just found a meteorite in Kansas that they estimate to be around 10,000 years old.

  2. arbiter007 on April 12th, 2009 9:31 pm

    The Arizona Meteor Crater still contains the bulk of the original meteorite from 50,000 yrs ago:

    Anywhere you can dig down to the 65 million yr old strata, you can find iridium from the meteorite that caused the end of the dinosaurs.

  3. Cirric on April 14th, 2009 1:57 pm

    Hi. In Antarctica there is a place where meteorites which fell into the deep snow get transported by the moving snow pack until the reach a hill or mountain. The snow sublimates and the meteorites are just picked up. I never heard of the museums throwing anything out, but there is still a good supply of them that fell a long time ago.

  4. tham153 on April 15th, 2009 10:03 am

    There weren’t all that many museums that long ago, but some did collect oddities. The usual view at that time was that meteorites were peculiar stones that had been hit by lightning. I suppose you have read of the meeting of the French Academy in 1790 that had the embarrassing situation of a swarm of meteorites landing at the town where they were holding their annual meeting, forcing reconsideration of the idea of rocks falling from the sky. As for specimens prior to 1790, the museum likeliest to still have any is probably the Munich Museum.

  5. iknowtruthismine on April 18th, 2009 12:59 am

    Meterorites, when found by primitive peoples usually turned them into other things, like tools or the rock upon which they established their silly religion (Kaaba in Mecca). They have always been around but because they were a source of Iron and nickle they either were turned into swords by man or chunks of rust by nature.