| dc.description.transcription | [Paul Walters Richardson TX] 1976 June 3. Dear Paul: I surely thank you for the copy from Sky and Telescope. That is really an intriguing record-breaking fall and I wish we had closer relations with China so that more informtion [information] would come out quickly, but I suppose it will in the course of time. I don't think I've had a card from the Center for Short Lived PHenomena so I don't know what's happeened [happened] to my subscription there! It's supposed to be paid up thru part of 1977. I had some slices from a stone from Wiluna, West Australia offered to me by a mineral dealer and am pondering some terrific prices asked. This was an observed shower Sept. 2, 1967 and presumably the specimens were gathered r easonaly [reasonably] promptly; the crust is nice and black and fresh. But the slices show consierable [considerable] oxidation or rust on the Interior Paces, and I can't understand how water got into the stone so rapidly. Maybe water was used as a saw lubircant [lubricant] or they were allowed to rust superficialoy [superficially] later, I've written the dealer an inquiry but probably he won't know. The Yukon specimen report you phoned me is very, very interesting. It seems to me dimly that I had seen a Yukon listing somewhere, and I'll cehck [check] Glenn Huss offerings and the Meteoritical Society listings recently--I am probably wrong. I suggest you follow up on it all you can, since If there is really a crater there could be more irons. Of course I think you will have to tread softly with DuBois and not offend him or let him think you have taken unethical advantage of his information In any way. With his permission it would surely be well to continue efforts to late the finder and see why he was using a metal detector there. We could get aerial photographs of the region if you get it pinpointed. I thought I had sent you copies of all cards on fireballs or meteorite falls from the Center at Boston but I will try to enclose some more copies including one on the Colorado fireball that was Just one day different from the twilight one we worked on. I assume nothing has been found by Glenn Hoss or others who worked on the Colorado matter. I never heard anything from Du Bois or West. The Naerican [American] Meteor Society is decorating some of is efforts for lack of funds and Wast may be less active. I am delighted with your efforts at Deport and more tangilble [tangible] things will come of them, I am sure. Too bad the irons Roy Williamson, James Rhodes and Travis Ferris had were lost; evern [even] 508 an ounce doesn't seem to make people save these! You know Roy Willimson [Williamson] or his father was the one I got an old (brown) atone from at Deport. They had broken It (in spite of my please in the circular not to do that) and never could find one piece of It for me; what I got was broken into two pieces. YOur fresh fall story from there is most intriguing and we can hope for luck In running It down. IN addition to What y u [you] are trying, let's see if we can get a date or a near date on It and then we can check my fireball files. Also, a date might enable us to find some newspaper story on it, perhaps at the Paris paper. AS I told you on the phone, I think ?Deport is a vvery [very] oold [old] fall, perhaps hundred or even thousands of years. I hvae rever [have never] got a specimen that looked anyways near fresh. The one I carry has been kept sort of greasy and hand polished by so much handling I think there are plenty of more meteorites at Deport and woujldlove [would love] to go up there with you next fall but the summer time is no good for field work. We ought to inquire if they hadve dug any tanks in the immediate area or whether there has been any other excavation of note, for roads, bridges, etc. I am sure with more steady working on it more will show up. They were formerly found a good deal in cotton chopping time, about July-Sept. I think you’ll have to pay at least 50 cents an ounce, maybe more, and instead of weighing carefully just guess at weights and pay liberally to encourage them. Sincerely, | |
