1387.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. G05 



everyone's tongue. When I went homo that eveniug members of my family asked 

 about it and wondered. Nearly every one in this county heard it, and from the dif- 

 ficulty I had in locating I remember that I was under the imprcssiou that the report 

 was heard generally for 50 miles in east, west, and south directions, and I suppose it 

 was heard uorth but do not know. We have no intercourse with that section by 

 reason of a range of mountains — Boston Mountains. 



Imay mention that Yell County lies on the south side of the Arkansas Eiver, and 

 has very little communication with that ou the north side, and it was several days 

 after the report before we could hear w^here it had fallen, and by that time there had 

 been hundreds of rumors to the effect that a meteor had fallen "just beyond some- 

 body's place, and the people were going out nest day to tind it." There were so 

 many of these rumors contlicting that very shortly the prevailing idea was that noth- 

 ing had fallen to the ground, but that the report was simply a report in the heavens 

 made by something passing by. The idea that the noise died away in the southwest, 

 I think, may be due to reverberation. The impression made on the observer was that 

 some tremendojis thing had passed by going to the southwest. After they learned 

 that a piece had really fallen they concluded that the piece had " sloughed" — "sluffed" 

 — oft' the main piece. 



l>y the time authentic news was procurable it was the 1st of April, and then every- 

 body was disposed to look on the real locating of the fall as an April fool. 



In fact, I attribute the failure of the Little Rock dallies to publish the find to that 

 fact — that they thought it an April joke. 



I give you all this irrelevant matter thinking that it may possibly be used, at least 

 some of it, incidentally in making an account of the find, interesting to the general 

 reader. 



Perhaps you may not know that some time afterward the meteor was brought to 

 this town, as it was to others, and placed on exhibition at 10 cents a sight. Mr. Ma- 

 lone, who had it, was not very well read up on meteors — at least made little effort to 

 edify his patrons. I looked up the subject a little, and wrote the Scientific American 

 folks for information as to probable value, market, etc. 



Regretting the delay, and hoping that this may not i^rove entirely useless, I am, 

 very respectfully, 



G. R. Williams. 



Mr. George F. Kunz, 



New York. 



