THE RICHARDTON METEORITE 443 



inches in diameter, and it was just where the sun is about the first week in 

 November at fifteen minutes after twelve. It came nearer and nearer, and 

 larger and larger, so at last I thought I must go out of its way or it would 

 strike me. It was at least as big to me as the sun is sometime in August 

 when it sets, but more than three times as light; then it flashed out (it was a 

 cloudless night and no wind), and it was all still. I said to my wife, "Where 

 is it now? It has to come. It is so near to the surface of the earth." It 

 just took this long to say these words when we heard a great racking in the 

 air in the same direction, and in a few seconds we heard the pieces sounding 

 through the air like shells. We could hear that there were some smaller and 

 some larger pieces, and that some went beyond us and some fell south of us. 

 But the worst racking and noise was the exploding in the air. It seemed that 

 it shook the ground under my feet, and I could hear the windows in my house 

 rattle. We could not see the pieces, but we could hear them, and we could 

 teU that they came from the direction from which the meteorite came. 



The light of the meteor was seen over more than 400 square miles, and the 

 noise was heard over 250 square miles. 



The following account of the fall was written by Mr. Orris 

 W. Roberts, meteorologist, United States Weather Bureau, Bis- 

 marck, North Dakota: 



This meteorite was observed by the writer. I was driving my automobile 

 some distance east of Bismarck on the night in question. As we make reports 

 of such phenomena I am in position to give some information. The time of 

 observation was 10:48 p.m., June 30, 1918. The meteorite appeared to move 

 somewhat north of east and the explosion was plainly to be seen, although no 

 report reached the observer. The light was intense, lighting up the entire 



sky The location of the meteorite at the time of the explosion as 



located on our reports would indicate that it occurred over eastern Hettinger 

 county. 



Writing on March 19, 1919, Mr. Roberts recalled that the 

 meteorite appeared to be falling at an angle of less than 45° to 

 the horizontal. Bismarck is 74 miles east and 10 miles north of 

 the locality where the meteorite fell. 



There is apparent a discrepancy of about an hour between 

 the time of fall as given by Mr. Roberts, a trained observer, and 

 that given by almost all the other witnesses. The explanation is 

 that Mr. Roberts, stationed at Bismarck, uses Central time, 

 whereas the other observers quoted live west of the Missouri 

 River, which is the geographical boundary between users of Central 

 and Mountain time in that latitude. Mr. Roberts' estimate that 



