THE HELT TOWNSHIP (INDIANA) METEORITE 



By STUART H. PERRY 



Adrian, Mich. 

 (With Nine Plates) 



The Helt Township meteorite, a small but unusually interesting 

 meteoric iron from Indiana, which has a fairly satisfactory history of 

 having been observed to fall, was obtained by the writer in 1927 from 

 William J. Seaver, a mineral dealer of Webster Groves, Mo. It was 

 originally in the geological collection of the late John Collett, who was 

 State Geologist of Indiana from 1878 to 1885, and who died in 1899. 



Mr. Seaver stated that Dr. Collett at his death left a large collection 

 of minerals and fossils at Terre Haute, where for many years they 

 were stored in a cellar, suffering from loss and pilferage. All this 

 material was bought by Mr. Seaver in 191 5, and included in it was a 

 collection of 13 small specimens of meteorites in a cabinet. Several 

 years later, in a case of Indiana minerals and fossils, this additional 

 specimen was discovered. When obtained by the writer it still bore a 

 gummed label with the words "Vermillion County, Ind." in pencil. Dr. 

 Collett may have kept it apart from the other meteorites because of a- 

 special interest in the specimen, arising from the fact that his home 

 and birthplace were in that county, or perhaps because of the circum- 

 stances of its acquisition. 



On the latter point definite information was furnished by the geolo- 

 gist's nephew, John S. Collett, of Indianapolis, who in 1929 wrote: 



The meteorite now possessed by you was found in Vermillion county, in Helt 

 township, by a farmer who saw it fall and heard the explosion as he was walking 

 from his barn to his house between nine and ten o'clock in the evening. The 

 next day he examined his fields and found a place of fresh earth that looked as 

 if a small blast of explosive had been discharged — a sort of ragged opening like 

 a small post-hole. Upon excavating he found the specimen you now possess, 

 which was brought by the finder in person to the Professor at the State House 

 in this city. The farmer's name as I remember it was Frist, the year about 

 1883 or 1884. 



Correspondence with persons by the name of Frist in that township 

 brought no information other than that they had heard that something 

 had fallen in the neighborhood many years ago. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol.98, No. 20 



