10 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I48 



masses to enter our atmosphere and fall would scatter pieces in 

 different places from those where the first or second one fell. Thus, 

 the distance between the strewn fields would depend upon the 

 interval that separated the arrival of the individual masses into the 

 atmosphere and upon the trajectories along which they were travel- 

 ing. For meteorites to approach the earth in such a manner prob- 

 ably would require the fragmentation of a larger object relatively 

 close to the earth. Any mass fragmenting far out in space would 

 scatter, and thus few pieces would have parallel orbits. 



Many spectacular fireballs have been tracked across North America, 

 and from some of them meteorites have fallen. Since the distance 

 traversed by some fireballs exceeds the distance over which clustered 

 hexahedrites have been found scattered, a few of these events will 

 be briefly reviewed. 



When Smith (1877) described the Rochester fireball of 1876, he 

 may have considered a mechanism similar to that described above 

 when he wrote : 



The Bolide made its appearance about 9 o'clock p.m., December 21, 1876, and 

 was of extraordinary magnificence. It passed eastward over the States of 

 Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and parts of Pennsylvania and New 

 York. Although no observations were made in the last two mentioned states, 

 still Professor Kirwood is doubtless correct in defining this as its course. At 

 Bloomington, its elevation was 15 degrees. According to the calculations, the 

 length of its observed track was from lOOO to 1100 miles, one of the longest on 

 record. Its height is supposed to have been 38 miles above the place where the 

 small fragments fell from it. 



The Canadian fireball of February 9, 1913, which was named 

 Cyrillid by O'Keefe (1961), also made an unusually long streak 

 across the country. Detonations were heard all the way from 

 Toronto, Ontario, to Towanda, Pa., a distance of 200 miles. If more 

 observations had been collected immediately after its passage, this 

 distance possibly would have been extended. O'Keefe quotes ob- 

 servers as saying, "Before the astonishment aroused by the first 

 meteor had subsided, other bodies were seen coming from the 

 northwest, emerging from precisely the same place as the first one. 

 Onward they moved, at the same deliberate pace, in twos or threes 

 or fours, with trails streaming behind." 



The Pasamonte meteorite, which fell March 24, 1933, also made 

 a brilliant display over several states. Nininger (1934) interviewed 

 observers in the area from near Wichita, Kan., to New Mexico, where 

 the specimens were recovered. This fireball was seen for approxi- 

 mately 400 miles, but the objects known to have fallen from it are 

 confined to a distance of about 4 miles. 



