A TERRIFIC PHENOMENON

Hokitika Guardian, 13 October 1930, Page 7

A TERRIFIC PHENOMENON

It is reported from Moscow that n famous Russian aviator who went off to Siberia recently to search for and photograph' the giajit meteorite that fell in the Yeniseisk district in July, 1908, is now missing. Rut this failure is not likoly to deter (scientists from persevering in their ' attempt to get at the facts about one of the most terrifying and ominous events recorded in the history of the human race. A European savant, lecturing a year ago on the subject, mentioned among, other things that this meteorite 1 when it fell crushed down and destroyed the forest in which it landed over a* distance of more than 100 miles. He further expressed the opinion that if this meteorite had falle in Belgium, the whole of the population of that densely-popu 1 ation little country would have parijshpd; and he added that if it had fallen on or near London “no one in England south of Manchester and east of Bristol would have been Mt alive.”

I am not surprised, says" an Auckland Star writer, that “the audience shuddered visibly” at these words, and I am by no means sure that the learned Professor was exaggerating. The most formidable meteorite which lifts been investigated carefully for scientific purposes fell in the Arizona desert at least 700—and possibly 5000 years ago. It left a hole about four-fifths of a mile across the three miles round; the bottom of the pit is 440 ft below the level of the desert, and the meteorite itself—which is calculated to.have weighed about 200,000.000 tons—lies n.t least 1300 ft beneath the surface. That is about all that Science knows concerning the Arizona meteorite so far. But if we imagine such a projectile magnified scores of times me may get some notion of what happened when the Siberian monster fell, and we may also dimly conceive the terrible consequences that must have ensued if the inexorable Laws of Motion and Gravitation had conspired to bring it to earth—well, let us say elsewhere'. >, ■ ■